Buying a (bio)diesel car
Posted by DavidM in Driving | 24 October 2006
Some time ago I wrote about my plan to swap our Audi TT for a much larger diesel car, pick-up truck or 4x4 which I will then run on biodiesel.
My last post on the subject focused on 4x4's but I came to the conclusion that 4x4's and pick-ups both guzzle too much gas, even in diesel format.
So I've looked at estate cars.
I read on one of the many websites I looked at that VW/Audi group are the only manufacturer to approve the use of high-grade biodiesel in their cars - though only for cars from 1990 to 2004.
This, coupled with the fact that my wife loves Audis - and the TT in particular - led us to visit our local Audi showroom a couple of weeks ago. We test drove the Audi A4 Avant (estate) and the larger Audi A6 Avant. The A4 was a nicer more responsive drive but had an uncomfortable footwell. The A6 was a more refined drive suited to the motorway and had a larger boot.
After long discussions I'm putting the TT up for sale and buying an A6 estate. To be fair to the TT it has been doing 31mpg, but the A6 will do about 45mpg and with biodiesel our emmissions will be cut much further.
I know there is a lot of discussion about whether biodiesel is that good (I've got to write up a post about an excellent article in New Scientist) but it's still developing and if the demand is there the investment will follow to make it even better.
Must go now to log into Autotrader.
