It's still not clear whether Americans will embrace diesel, but Volkswagen's marketing arm is doing its best to talk us into it. Center stage in the effort is the new Jetta TDI, with its 2-liter four-cylinder common-rail turbodiesel engine, which has just recently hit U.S. showrooms.
First, the car bested a Toyota Prius in a highway mileage test. Now, it's set a long-term mileage record with a round-the-U.S. trip that will be chronicled in next year's Guinness Book of World Records.
Autoblog explains, "The fairest Jetta of them all has set a Guinness World Record by traversing the lower 48 U.S. states while returning 58.82 mpg thanks to John and Helen Taylor. The Taylors took 20 days to cover the 9,419 miles in a counter clockwise direction, and this wasn't a hypermiling slow-as-you-can-go affair - they stayed within 5 mph of the speed limit. Their car was completely stock as it consumed just 11 tanks of ultra low sulfur diesel and traveled 853 miles per fill up."
Volkswagen media relations has been kind enough to provide us with photos of the Taylors filling up their VW Jetta in their VW T-Shirts, with the VW logo given pride of place in the shot.
Fuel Academy runs the numbers: "11.04 Tanks of Shell Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel [wow, another product placement...didn't see that coming], costing U.S. $653.06. Average 853 Miles Per Tank, $U.S. 00.069 cents per mile."
Kicking Tires speculates that Volkswagen is publicizing the record because the company "was a little miffed when the EPA rated its new TDI 30/41 mpg city/highway. Clearly the diesel engine is capable of more than that on the highway." New EPA mileage calculations "have brought mileage estimates much closer to reality for hybrids and gasoline engines," but "new diesels may have gotten the shaft" if the new formula consistently underestimates their mileage.
Research the most fuel efficient affordable small cars with U.S. News' car rankings and reviews.
