Commuting with my LR3 / Looking at alternatives

[jwest]

Oh, disclaimer: I've owned several wagons, I love wagons, I pine for the ones I almost bought and the ones we cannot buy in North America.

I learned to drive, like really DRIVE, in a 1973 Plymouth wagon. That thing could do a 180 reverse slide on dirt roads like it was always meant to...

As an adult my first wagon was a 2007 Subaru Outback LLBean 3L. Sweet car, very practical, but then got bit by BMW.... next was a 2007 328i wagon, 6 spd, loaded, sport suspension, RWD. Then got bit by the AWD bug after moving to the PNW and living near snow and also wanting more space inside. Next wagon was 2008 BMW 535xi 6 spd. It's modified and one awesome road trip car.

It's great to have the lr3 for the rugged trips or where I'll camp more, cook on the tailgate, etc. The wagon is for driving faster and being very comfortable on all day drives and I still get 25-27 mpg in when loafing along.

 

[Houm_WA]

...about once every 3 years I am in complete agreement with Jwest. This is one of those times!

 

[jwest]

Hard to not consider a new tdi:

$1000* Fuel Reward Card on new 2013 and 2014 VW TDI models
$1,000* Fuel Reward Card plus 0.9% APR** for 60 months

Fuel Reward Card requires purchase or lease of eligible TDI® Clean Diesel model. Allow 8-10 weeks for delivery. Expires two years from date of issue, except where prohibited. More about the Beetle. More about the beetleconv. More about the Golf. More about the Jetta. More about the Jetta SportWagen. More about the Passat. More about the Touareg.

National Offer | Offer ends March 31, 2014

 

[jwest]

...about once every 3 years I am in complete agreement with Jwest. This is one of those times!

Would happen more often if you were always thinking clearly


Thanks!

 

[bgsntth]

My commute changed too, and I'm now commuting from Marin to San Leandro - 60 miles round trip with lots of stop and go and backstreet rallying through homeless camps in Oakland and Emeryville. I loved my Sport Supercharged, but I never really had enough headroom and the fuel costs was ridiculous, combined with knowing I was going to have >$3000 worth of suspension work if I kept it another year.

I ended up leasing a Honda Accord Sport 6-speed manual ($22,005) - one of C&D's 10 best. It does not have a lot of creature comforts, but does have dual exhaust, 10-way power seat, quick steering, and 18" wheels etc. I added Nokian z-line tires and Weathertech everywhere. It is a lot of fun to drive (suspension, gearbox, steering) - miss the torque, and is supremely comfortable (I'm 6'3" and 210lb). Driving very energetically I still get between 28 -32mpg. Plus the Accord has more room in the front and rear seats - lots more, and I can fold down the rear seat (now) and put in my bike\surfboard; which I could not do with the Sport. My olderst son will be 16 in two years, so this will probably be his car - hard to text with a stick (at least I hope).

I would only recommend the manual, however, as the CVT just drones.

I am planning on getting a a pick-up or LR4 in the next year, which helped the decision process.

 

[thorgal]

Umberto, good to hear that your 4.4 V8 in the RRS lasted 230k miles.

LOL.Let's not get ahead of ourselves…My wife's first car , a Plymouth Neon had 256 000 miles, when we sold it to a friend of mine,who continue to drive it for another two years .When we got that car for a 1400 dollars in Philly, it already had 80 000 miles on the clock, so if we can't get a 300 or 400 thousand miles of our engines, I would be , at least …disappointed.
My friend , a reverend from Canton MA has a V6 Jeep Cherokee with a 345 000 miles and he did not change a clutch yet..
All I am saying is , that we should expect more from a respectable V8 , right?

 

[Houm_WA]

at 400,000 miles....that engine/Rover might outlast ME! I only put on about 7500 miles/year.

@jwest: That was a good one. Seriously, I laughed...

 

[jwest]

at 400,000 miles....that engine/Rover might outlast ME! I only put on about 7500 miles/year.

@jwest: That was a good one. Seriously, I laughed...

 

[jwest]

90 mile round trip tire report:

out and back/same start finish, 90 miles, rolling elevation 0ft to 300ft, no particular weather but our rough studded tire roads

on I5 speeds 60-70mph mostly sitting at 68-72. At 70 mph + 2000 rpm.

Dash mpg shows 19.3
Calculation offset 6.75% for larger tire size. This means that 65 mph is actually almost 70 mph and that the dash mpg of 19.3 is really 20.5. I generally get what my dash says in mpg. On long trips the number stays higher because I stop about 1/3 as often as a stock lr3 due to my extra fuel tank.

These new tires are larger diameter by 6.75% but they are also Michelin's "Green X" Low Rolling Resistance compound. I think it might actually be true. Normally my route above on BFG AT tires, even driving a little more conservatively, only yields 17-18 mpg but not hanging around 70 mph the whole way.

This drive also includes about 10 miles of stoplight/stop sign route with about 15 total stops including a shut down and restart.

I'm thrilled to say the least.

The tires are the Michelin LTX Winter E load, 275/65-18, 123R, set at 50psi and my vehicles is weighing around 7000 lbs right now but on the trip down I had about 500 lbs in the back (5 BFG on LR 18" wheels, 3 extra lr 18" wheels, 3 bmw tires) Also had both fuel tanks full so that's an extra 28 gallons above stock vehicle fuel weight.

Rolling tire weight doesn't seem to hurt mpg much, once it's at speed. These seem to just not slow down though like the BFG do. There is a sound/noise, but it's less obscene than the BFG, but it's still very apparent.

With my 51 gallons fuel, I could maybe make 1000 range. I've done 800 easy before but you have to be on some long drives to really find out and of course there has to be a stop or two but with that kind of range, the stops can be much easier just going into rest areas or some view/overlook spot. I hate blowing 30-40 minutes wandering around some town navigating to find fuel or food. I'd rather be at my campsite or doing something fun for all the time several stops could ad up to by end of the day.

If I had a v6 tdi in there, I bet I could get 30 mpg no problem

 

[toddjb122]

You say 30,000 but your notes suggest about 100 miles per commute trip. Assuming you'll not commute 2 weeks of the 52 work weeks, I come up with 25,000 miles. Any more and the numbers below only get more in favor of 2nd commuter car....

Damn, jwest...are you going to make me pull out a calculator? Okay...
Let's go with 19,000 miles a year commuting (4 days a week, 48 weeks a year, 100 miles a day), at most.
Outside of work I have been putting on over 17,000 a year, which already subtracts out my old short commute.
So, I'd be at 36,000/year with the new setup.

Actual costs at the pump are averaging $20/trip with Premium costing about $3.80 now. That seems more than it should cost based on the average MPG I see...but I guess it takes into account more details than I care to go into. In the end, if I don't do much other than commute for 3 days, and it cost me $60 to top off the tank at the end of 3 days...I'm calling it $20/day.

Miles...ugh, well that depends which way Waze tells me to go each day. Can be as low as 36 miles per trip (with some real slow bumper to bumper sections), a highway route closer to 50 miles, or up to 60 miles if I'm routed around accidents and in those cases I'm in the car for a while anyway. Again...doing rough math I was averaging around 100/day. Ideally, it should be less but my gas is still around $20.

You are right on the fuel economy. I did the math initially a few times and couldn't figure out why I was spending $20 a day. It doesn't add up based on what I know I can get on a highway trip. So I guess it's the stop-n-go slow traffic.

Hard to not consider a new tdi:

$1000* Fuel Reward Card on new 2013 and 2014 VW TDI models
$1,000* Fuel Reward Card plus 0.9% APR** for 60 months

...

That's interesting. I was finding used ones, CPO, that I liked for around $20K. The new ones (with sunroof) are going for $26.5. So, the fuel card gets you down a $1000...however, I found they don't always mix incentives so it is worth poking around. You may only get price incentives OR the fuel card incentive. Not both.

...
I ended up leasing a Honda Accord Sport 6-speed manual ($22,005) - one of C&D's 10 best. It does not have a lot of creature comforts, but does have dual exhaust, 10-way power seat, quick steering, and 18" wheels etc. I added Nokian z-line tires and Weathertech everywhere. It is a lot of fun to drive (suspension, gearbox, steering) - miss the torque, and is supremely comfortable (I'm 6'3" and 210lb). Driving very energetically I still get between 28 -32mpg. Plus the Accord has more room in the front and rear seats - lots more, and I can fold down the rear seat (now) and put in my bikesurfboard; which I could not do with the Sport. ...

This one was not even on my radar. If you can fold down seats and fit in a surf board, that is worth looking into. I wouldn't be getting the 40+ mpg of the TDI, but, diesel is $4.20 a gallon and I'm guessing you can put regular in the Accord. I don't know what they cost yet but it could be worth looking at.


I appreciate the thoughts on this and am no closer to a decision. I do want to test drive the A3 which I haven't seen in person yet. I hear it is a little smaller.

I'm having a tough time accepting a car as just a commuter and throwing away all the utility aspect, which is why I was just looking at 5 doors. It seems that a couple days a week I am throwing some sporting equipment in the back of my LR3 that I still want to be able to do on the JSW. When I tried out this setup on the JSW I found out that the seats are a royal pain in the ass to fold down! You need tools to get the head rests out of the rear seat backs in order to get them to fold down. There is a small door that opens up which would only fit a set of skis (I don't ski) so that has no use for me unless I'm using it to haul a few 2x4s around for some reason. LOL

Anyway, still leaning towards the JSW for all the reasons you pointed.
Will take a look at the A3 and the Prius again...just for yucks, and maybe that Accord.