Low cost with economy?

[truck4myboys]

While the Mega Cab isn't offered with an 8' bed, I'd be curious as to the diminsions and cubic foot difference between the ford and Dodge standard Crew, they can't be that far off???

I had to look it up for kicks. They are really close except for rear legroom, which the Quad Cab has 36.4" and the Ford Crew has 42.5". 6 inches of extra leg room is a big deal. I didn't go by measurements though, I went by feel. And sitting in the rear of both, the Fjord just felt bigger. Now that I have 10 month old twins, I'm really glad for the room, it's much easier to get the carseats in the back of this thing!

[MoparNorm]

Thanks, I was curious. The ford does look bigger I just wondered by how much, since there are style "tricks" envolved such as different door post thickness, seat angle and windshield angle. By the time those boys get bigger there should be a Mega Cab 8' bed with that 6.7 Cummins, it's the first cab with reclining rear seats, it's like an SUV with a bed....= )
MN

[Don in Missouri]

I just read some fact sheets on BioDiesel. Even low percentage mixes of BioDiesel increase lubricity. That's a nice benefit when the ultra low sulfur Diesel has less lubricity than the Diesel you bought at the pump last year.

[Dodgezilla]

Im in canada soo im about kms.
my uncle has the tdi jetta.
he gets over 1000kms per tank. Two years ago he payed like 30 bucks to fill up aha

[Sodbust]

Sick and tired

Hello all

I am sick and tired, of tv adds for 300 hp, 224hp and 250hp in a 2400 lb car.. What gives,, makes me think they feel we are using $1.35 gas again!

There is no way,, some 2L 4 valve non turbo gas engine is going to hammer out 250 hp for very long,, if it does at all. I think they might take one of the little buggers and wind it up to about 10,000 rpm and dump the clutch and see where the dyno peaks out at before the crank brakes or it stalls out. How dumb do they think the public is anyway?

I agree,, where is the diesel Rabbit?? There are 1/2 doz still hammering around my area with 250,000 miles or more on them. The doors hardly shut due to total frame and body brake down,, but they still hammer out 45 to 50 mpg.

I know the MB company is selling a little car called the Smart car. Some tree hugger company in Calf got some over here to pass the EPA and crash tests BS,, but they just can not seem to get them in large numbers. From what I hear,, they have a gas engine, or a diesel. The gas gets around 60mpg and the diesel around 70mpg.. I kept hoping that with MB owning MoPar, that they would show up here, but no luck.. Now that MB dropped MoPar, I do not think it will ever make it over here in numbers.

Anyone else been following this?

Sodbust

[JimmieD]

Someone else probably has better info but as I recall the method of estimating mileage etc. is scheduled to be changed, to give a more accurate picture. I think Mopar Norm mentioned it. While these small cars can rack up some good numbers on a dyno, that's only peak power figures. It doesn't say anything about the power band as in what an engine has from idle to redline, just peak power.

I'm not sure on long term reliability, but there have been some serious improvements in metallurgy and mfg techniques of late. We'll see if they're on the road or in the wreckers at 250K miles?!!!

I saw a cool little Dodge truck for the first time a few days ago. It was a Dodge Ram 50 with a Turbo Diesel, all built by Mitsubishi. The owner explained that Mitsubishi only built 2 diesel engines, this being one of them, and that parts were brutally expensive and hard to find, with much of it NLA [No Longer Available]. Too bad, it was a slick little truck.

[MoparNorm]

Interestingly enough, those little buzz bombs do turn out high horsepower and get about 20-24 mpg. But Sodbust is right, they are real pipey at about 6,500 rpm. The reason is two-fold, 1) they get to claim kudos in the horsepower race and 2) they NEED the high rpms to completely burn their fuel and meet emission requirements.
Sadly these motors are worthless for Jeeps, trucks and things that need to work at 1,000 rpm with a load or towing. The good news is, in spite of the environmental wackos attempts to ban diesel in CA and 4 other states, Detroit is finally getting it's diesel act together. Cummins in building a new plant to build small V-6 and V-8 motors for Dodge and Jeep. GM is offering small V-8 diesels in it's light duty trucks next year and Ford is building in-house diesels for it's next generation vehicles (so-long Navistar).

[Sodbust]

Luck with v-8s

Hello,

Yes I see this fact.. But how may "good" v-8 and v-6 diesel engines, have been made and dropped after a few years. I had a Cummins 555 v8 in a tractor.. It sucked.. and after 3800 hours,, it blew up.

I was told by an old semi wrench,, that v8s and v6 diesels have funny harmonics going on that eat at the engine from the inside out.

sodbust

[MoparNorm]

No Cummins goes into production with less than one million test miles on it, so I'm sure that they have it worked out.
These are modern, quiet, clean CRD motors meeting 2010 emission standards. From 5 feet away you can't tell that they are diesels, but the toque and HP numbers are what you'd expect from a diesel and with 35-40% better fuel economy than comparable gasoline motors. These engines are for the long term, with major money being expended in the technology manufacturing facilities and a long term commitment from Chrysler.
Clean small diesels are the motor of the future.
E85 and hybrids (except for diesel hybrids) are a dead end, consuming more energy than they produce and E85 based upon corn is already disrupting the food supply.

[Sodbust]

E85,,, farmer view

MoparNorm

We have several stils in our farming area. And we have 1/2 doz feed lots also.(200 to 200,000 head) The cattle men love the stils byproduct as it has been cooked so to speak, and the cattle do much better with it as far as lbs/day/gain.

Every bushel of corn/ milo/ we grown in this area is for livestock. They are just now getting the grain cooked and not raw. With the 10% loss of starch to make fuel is made back up with the feeding ratio of weight of gain. So not 1 extra bushel of grain is needed to feed the livestock and we end up with 2.3 gallons of fuel a bushel.

Felt I should add some air to the tires around here!..

Sodbust

[MoparNorm]

The concerns are due to speculation by investors which is driving up the price of corn. Already beef and dairy prices are going up because the cost of the corn based feed is going up. There have been "Tortilla Riots" in South America and Mexico as the price of corn rises there.

Making Ethanol from a food product is never a good idea on a mass production basis. There are many, many other crops that can be used, but in the final analysis, it takes more energy to produce ethanol than ethanol produces, it is a net energy loser. Ethanol cost three times more than Methanol (current prices are $3.85 vs. $1.05 per gallon). A gallon of ethanol produces less energy than gasoline. The only advantage to ethanol, at the moment, is that it sparks the debate about how to wean us off of imported oil.

It is estimated that to replace our consumption of oil with ethanol, we would need every available acre of farmland that is currently in production, just to grow corn.

My personal bet is on diesel and bio-diesel powered vehicles, that will have the least amount of impact on how and what we drive and yield fuel economy improvements, over gasoline, from 25% to 100%, depending upon the size of the vehicle.

Detroit, with pressure from Washington, seems to be **** bent on pushing us into E85 using food based ethanol, I think it is a serious mistake.

[Altered_Auto]

I think it is a serious mistake.

Of course it is a serious mistake! No other country has ever given up a food source for transpotration. Also if the enviromentalists knew the effects farming that much corn had on the enviroment (run off, fertilizer, etc.) they would have a cow. Well maybe not a cow but some kind of soy product.

[MoparNorm]

Making Ethanol from a food product is never a good idea on a mass production basis.

I'm not against using non-food products or marginal food by-products on a large scale or even foods such as soy, beets, etc. on a smaller scale, such as Sodbust is doing. There are millions of undeveloped acres in the American west that could sustain certain crops without taking every drop of available water to do so.
However I see the potential for a huge "Big E" complex devouring everything in sight, and the only goal is to keep the inefficient gasoline engine alive another 50 years, at the expense of the American consumer.
If every vehicle in the United States was magically turned into a diesel powered vehicle overnight, we'd be instantly free from foreign oil. The amount we would save from improved fuel economy equals the amount we import now.

[Altered_Auto]

Not to mention the fact that there are countless sreas that we know have oil supply (Gulf of Mexico) but are not being drilled. The fact is that nothing will change untill gas becomes so expensive that nobody is willing to buy it. The problem lies in the fact that our nation is based on petroleum and changing it over would be a huge undertaking and cost an ungodly ammount of money. It would be nice if they gave up on ethanol (which I believe they should) and start looking into diesel but the fact is that they have already spent so much money on it they can't admit it was a mistake.

[Sodbust]

The other point of view

Gentlemen

All I know is what I see. Yes,, making just fuel out of corn is a lost effort. The costs of fertilizer/ labor/ ect will not support just making fuel. But 95% of this corn and milo is going to livestock feed anyway. It was yesterday/it is today / and will be 4 years from now. Just as well cook it and make the fuel we can use and we still have the same amount of feed left over for the livestock feed.

As for the costs of food going up,, let me just point this fact out. I started to farm in 1972.. New tractors were $18,000,, new combines were $20,000,, and land out here was $100 acre. Fertilizer was selling for a whopping $50 ton.

I farmed for 30 years seeing the same value for the grain when I sold it as when I started, the same my grandfather saw in 1950. And his father saw in 1920. $1.20 Corn, $2,00 wheat,, and $1.00 milo.. The pressure to raise more each year to cover the added costs of inflation hit its peek several years ago. We were banging our heads on the top of the game. Since plants are just nothing but solor collectors, we have hit a limit of yeild gains.

Now (2007) a basic tractor is $150,000,, a new combine I got last fall was $285,000, without the $25,000 header,, and land is up to $1200 an acre. Fertilizer topped out this spring at $550 a ton.

What you are seeing is not so much the cost of E85,, but overall inflation!!!! We as farmers have to get more for our grain plain and simple. Try importing all the food for this country and talk about higher costs! Shipping grain from around the world alone would cost consumers what US farmers are now getting today for a fair value for our products. Allot of the added costs of food the last few years is the shipping of our grain to you, and shipping fertilizer,, fuel, parts, tractors to us. Cut our fuel nations supplies 5%,, and it would go up again 4 fold overnight. Thank the starts for the dribble of E85 we now have.

This all just happened and fell into place around the same time with all the new E85 fuel plants, as for the higher grain values.. The last several years we have a younger and allot smarter farmers, inflation, fuel, shipping, cost of seed ect. The bubble broke..

Allot of the older farmers that just kept there eyes at the ground and worked from day to day, hoping tomorrow would get better are out of farming, or died. We lost 10 to 15 farmers a week over the last 5 years in our area alone. And this is not a populated area.. WE only have 1 working stop light in 300 sq miles. What you now have running the farms is the younger blood that went to school and know there cost of production, or farmers like myself that had a clue what was going on and held on. Just 10 years ago,, you could ask 20 farmers what a bushel of wheat cost to grow,, and 19 of them did not even have a clue. Now they all know and are not going to just sell the crop to gain some cash flow like just a few years ago. They know to the $0..0001 what a bushel of wheat costs there farm to grow. They are not just going to give it away like there fathers did.

I have to invest $250,000 a year imputs to grow crops on my farm. I have to have $700,000 worth of rolling stock to get that job done. My upkeep and repairs run right at $150,000 a year. I am tired bustin my *** off 7 days a week, for nothing. I love the life style or I would have left years ago. Even with what city folks think as a major rip off,, Gov Payments to keep us going out here,, I would like to make enough to have to pay income tax once in awhile! Its a sinking feeling to sell $500,000 worth of grain, and have to take out another farm note for float the farm another year.

The overall fact is, E85 has been a blessing, and a wake up call to this country. It has given hope again to this country's farmers that we are worth something, and we do have something of value to sell for food, and make fuel.

My efforts with sunflower fuel is a small dent. But I can grow fuel for my farm, for the same acres of grain I needed for my livestock. They just now eat sunflower meal at 32% protein and not corn at 10% protein. So it takes alot less.. They are happy, I'm happy and my diesel engines are happy.

Now the fact of diesels and there role in our energy needs. Yes, diesels have the gift of burning anything you can cook a do-nut in. They do it very well. Heat, pressure, and compression, and long life... The vacuum of demand right now of needs for good veg cooking oil is zapping the oil supply we could have been making diesel fuel out of today. Every day you hear of another large cookie plant, or do-nut chain switching from lard,, (animal fat) to veg oil for heath reasons. With in the next few years there will be a huge shift of planted acres from corn, milo to oil seeds to meet this cooking oil demand, ( and market value) Right now,, corn at $3.20 a 60 lb bushel, and sunflowers at $10.80 for 60 lbs of raw seeds. The market is calling, " we need oil!!" So for a good hunk of beef on the grill,, we will be lucky to have the E85 plants up and running, or yet more acres would be taken away from livestock/fuel and growing more oil seeds. just a point..

Sodbust