Let's yack about vehicles

Move closer to the trails ? Is this actually a car dilemma or is it a deeper lifestyle VS career decision.

My job that I have no desire to leave because of seniority is in cloverdale. All of the grandparents live in Langley which is helpful when you have a 2 year old. I would love to live close to where I play and work but this isn't an option.

4-banger mazda or ranger extended cab p/u

Smart Car

My cousin had one of those City Gulf diesels or some shit like that, hes into the new GTI. The diesel got 2x+ the fuel economy as the GTI. Find one of those diesel things

Consider small pickups like ranger, nissan, mazda or toyota if you got the $? Shuttle in a truck can be easier, but not hold as many peeps. Also lots of good riding in the other direction of the PMB and toll. No bridges, less traffic,and if google has it right, 1/2 the distance from langley to Vedder as it is to cypress. Maybe cypress is just much better to you, i dont know? I admittedly have ridden cypress only a hand full of times…..

Consider small pickups like ranger, nissan, mazda or toyota if you got the $? Shuttle in a truck can be easier, but not hold as many peeps. Also lots of good riding in the other direction of the PMB and toll. No bridges, less traffic,and if google has it right, 1/2 the distance from langley to Vedder as it is to cypress. Maybe cypress is just much better to you, i dont know? I admittedly have ridden cypress only a hand full of times…..

Shit yeah - Vedder, Sumas, Bear, Red, Heritage Park, Ledgeview.

Why are you driving to Cypress??

First time I was in your position I bought an older Yamaha 400cc motorcycle for $700. Insurance was $25 a month and gas was $100 a month (compared with my $350-$400 regular gas bill) It was like I was making money by owning a motorcycle :)

Second time I bought a used Hyundai accent for $600 and drove it for a year then sold it for $500. Insurance was $115 and gas about $250 a month. Similar to the motorcycle buying this car actually saved me money over having just 1 vehicle.

My advice if you buy a cheaper used car test drive it for at least 1/2 hour on the highway, over speed bumps, tight turns etc. Check all fluids.

If you can invest in a cheaper OBD2 reader as well ($15) as you never know if someone has turned off check engine light or even pulled the bulb

Kind of ironic a guy named "jetta_mike" is telling you to look elsewhere?

http://bb.nsmb.com/images/smilies/deadhorse.gif

It does not make $ sense when diesel is [HTML_REMOVED] RUG

I learned my lesson.

So I came to the bitter realization yesterday that it costs me almost $30 to drive from cypress to my house in Langley (including bridge toll). F these gas prices, F bridge tolls and F driving a gas guzzler so I can shuttle my friends. I'm on the extreme side of things right now and looking at Diesel Jetta Wagons. Any years to stay away from? Any other vehicles I haven't considered? Cargo room would be ideal hence the wagon. I'm even looking at diesel Toyota rhd vans. My dating life ended years ago so I'm all about economy now lol.

Just another reason shuttling is ghey.

I did a retrieve/dodged boulders up the freshly graded (as in the grader was chewing things up as we were driving up,) Sumas road yesterday in my Mazda 3 wagon. Wasn't pretty but got 'er dun.

Consider small pickups like ranger, nissan, mazda or toyota if you got the $? Shuttle in a truck can be easier, but not hold as many peeps. Also lots of good riding in the other direction of the PMB and toll. No bridges, less traffic,and if google has it right, 1/2 the distance from langley to Vedder as it is to cypress. Maybe cypress is just much better to you, i dont know? I admittedly have ridden cypress only a hand full of times…..

My ranger does lower Lonsdale to Coquitlam right off highway before the bridge for a stellar $15 per day round trip. It's the 3.0 v6. The 4 cylinder is probably cheaper. In comparison my work truck is a 3500 diesel sprinter van and fully loaded I put about 1000 km on it for $100. For fuel economy between my sprinter van and the ranger the sprinter totally wins. Plus it holds like 12 bikes inside it.

More importantly the cheapest gas in the lower mainland is consistently around United way in Coquitlam. Right off the highway. Today it's 151.3 in North Van and 146.3 in Coquitlam. Alway 5 cents cheaper there then in Surrey, Langley or Vancouver. You maybe should be pit stopping to save money if you burn that much gas.

If you decide to pursue the TDI idea shoot me a PM and I can try to provide you with a list of what to look at when inspecting used ones. Try to stay within the 2001 - 2003 range as this is the ALH engine and 2004 was the change to the PD which tend to have camshaft issues. Stay away from the automatic if at all possible and get all the service records of anything you look at. Timing belt, turbo vane actuator and EGR system are all critical items that need to be kept up on to ensure they don't take out other parts of the engines.

If you're planning to spend a lot of time on the highway running to Cypress, Seymour or the valley a TDI would be great however if you will be driving it in town a lot with plenty of starts and stops you might want to consider other options as you won't see the same savings and will just carbon up the diesel engine.

It seems that using that fuel consumption search that the difference between the 4 and 6 cylinder rangers are huge and the difference to the f-150 is small.

I always wonder how this really works out in practice though. Lots of people say that if you are always up and down hills that you overwork the 4cylinder and it ends up similar for gas. I also understand they've done a lot of work improving the efficiency of the full sizes, but they really are quite a lot more weight. Maybe under their ideal track testing the gas millage works out close, but I have to believe in reality the gap is still there.

Anyone got any thoughts on this? I'm currently looking into grabbing an early 2000's ranger or tacoma at the moment.

More importantly the cheapest gas in the lower mainland is consistently around United way in Coquitlam. Right off the highway. Today it's 151.3 in North Van and 146.3 in Coquitlam. Alway 5 cents cheaper there then in Surrey, Langley or Vancouver. You maybe should be pit stopping to save money if you burn that much gas.

And the diesel us slightly less expensive than gas.