domer 10 - Yeah mate you gotta love your power to own a thirsty V8 down-under. In Australia the new retail on a Chrysler SRT8 is $66,990 plus on-road costs so early on in the model's life some people were paying in the $70-80K range and that's when the Aussie dollar was worth more than the American dollar !!
Retail in N.Z. was $87,990 plus another $2,800 for the Italian leather pack covering the dashboard and door arm rolls plus on road costs, so $92,000 was about the go drive away when the SRT8 was launched here in winter 2012. We do get the tech pack, (radar cruise control and other technology and the 19 Speaker Harmon Kardon sound system included but yeah the price is still a huge rort for RHD vehicles.
By waiting till the "new model premium" had worn off I got just on $19,000 Kiwi off the price after a good long haggle on the price, so $72,750 Kiwi drive away. That said guys are buying the run-out 5 speed auto base SRT8's in America for about $40,000 U.S. dollars without most of the tech and Harmon Kardon stuff, so yeah there's no questionw e get rorted down-under although I guess the shipping can't be cheap.
Earlye - Many thanks for the Octane info on the 95 RON - I think my car should drive fine on that which is about 15 cents a litre less expensive here than 98 Octane, (2.33 v $2.18 a litre)
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: Rodge
You got it mate, you gotta be bloody keen down here. Fact is, unless you live in some of the Arab countries, you lucky guys in the States have some of the cheapest fuel in the world and with all that shale oil coming on stream now, it should stay that way. Enjoy !! When I'm feeling broke I put the fuel guzzling Chrysler Hemi away and drive the diesel Merc. There's always a silver lining in every cloud LOL and life ain't too bad in 100% pure New Zealand. The air and water is very clean
No doubt, we've got it pretty good on energy prices here. And a lot of it is domestic produciton again now, too.
One place we've been reamed a bit is diesel- what are your prices down there now? Ever since the switch to ultra-low sulfur diesel here in the US, diesel prices have been running higher than premium gasoline most of the time! Still not bad if you own an older economical Benz, a TDI, or some of the newer small diesels like a Grand Cherokee. But the guys with Powerstroke Fords and Cummins Rams have been paying a lot, especially since those trucks no longer get better MPG than their gasoline counterparts like they did in the early 1990s, what with all the particulate filters and rengeneration cycles burning up extra fuel.
We have it not too bad on the diesel here mate and get the ultra low suplur stuff and have done for several years, its $1.44 a litre Kiwi, (which when you take into account the higher energy content in diesel with it being a heavy fuel distillate and all is pretty good), but the N.Z. Govt taxes it differently than petrol so you pay what's called a road user charge on diesel vehicles here which is calculated on the vehicles weight. For an up to 3 ton car its $57 per 1,000 km's driven.
I know what you're talking about with the DPF's and regeneration cycles and short trips, we had MAJOR drama's with our Mercedes early on with taking it for short trips to the local shops, always trying to regenerate the DPF and never being able to do so due to insufficient heat. Oil level was going up in the sump at the rate of 1 litre per 3,000 km's driven !!!!! That's excess diesel fuel from constant regeneration getting into the oil in the sump, talk about oil contamination !! As you can imagine I had a fair bit to say to Mercedes-Benz about that !!
Strangly enough even after taking several UOA it didn't seem to affect wear rates in any meaningful way.