18.9 mpg!

[umungus1122]

Originally Posted By: SonofJoe
Originally Posted By: umungus1122
Originally Posted By: SonofJoe
I'm pretty sure you can use a K-Car outdoors. Maybe not indoors so much though...
I'm not sure where you'd put the bed full of 2x4s, mulch, lawn equipment, coal, etc. in that car, or how'd you get down a dirt road with 1.5 ft. deep mud holes and ruts.



This takes me back twenty years to when my daughter was a bolshy, provocative teenager who liked nothing more than a good argument with her boring, uncool Dad.

Her favourite tactic was to always argue from the most extreme case because this offered the greatest differentiation in whatever point she was trying to make. Now my daughter turned out to be very bright cookie and pulled a First at Kings, but back then, she always lost the argument because the exception is exactly that and by definition can't ever reflect 'the greater norm'. Exceptions never win generalised arguments.

To dismiss a K-Car for the reasons you stated is to argue the exception. I've been to the US more times than I can count and the majority of commuters I've seen aren't hauling lawn equipment or timber or coal (??). It's just one bloke hauling nothing more than a briefcase, plodding to & from work (or, in the case of the OP, 'going to the doctors'). And you have these things called freeways and beltways which, if I recall correctly were made out of concrete & tarmac, not mud.

See where I'm going on this?
Living in rural areas is not uncommon in the US. "See where I'm going with this?"- I see you're proceeding from an urbanized/ suburbanized perspective. Trucks are dual use vehicles, for hauling loads AND personnel transport. There's a reason why they're the best selling vehicles in the US. Freeways huh? Drive your k-car type up my roadway- you won't make it. Yes, coal for primary heat. I shovel the 3000lbs. into the bed at the yard, then shovel it out into the bin. Regarding people who want to drive fuel inefficient vehicles for purely transportation reasons, well, that's their business. Your "greater norm" is irrelevant. Freedom trumps your climate change inspired [censored] any day of the week.

 

[KrisZ]

Sure, China and India will clean up in a jiffy, big bad US with their big bad V8s and guns is the real problem. You tried to explain you logic the the prior thread. As you said, no real facts are required, just feel good intentions.

Thankfully that doesn't fly here.

 

[02SE]

18.9 US (as opposed to Imperial) mpg, is pretty impressive for that 31 year old truck.

 

[SonofJoe]

I think my job here is done. Back to the holiday now...

 

[Nyogtha]

Originally Posted By: SonofJoe
Just back from a very nice lunch (I'm on holiday in South Africa again). Seems this thread has livened up a bit since I left it.

Where to start?

Proof! Must have proof! Where's the proof??? This is what happens when sensible people start to argue less like engineers and more like cheap, strip mall lawyers (aka Saul Goodman). You cannot have absolute proof! If you're making predictions several decades into the future, by definition, you cannot have 'proof' of what has not yet happened. And because you don't have 100% proof, you only commit yourself to a course of action that results in absolutely nothing ever changing! As a philosophical concept, is it just me that thinks this is just plain dumb? You do not have to have proof to do good stuff. Proof often only comes after the event. Every half decent scientist knows this.

Yes, its pretty obvious that emissions in China & India aren't great and that Western emissions pale in comparison but again, is this a sensible argument for not doing anything at all?? 'He's doing it so why can't I do it?' is a philosophy that belongs in the school playground, not at the heart of global attempts to temper the worst potential effects of climate change. And anyways, the smoggy, polluted China & India you see today won't be the China & India you see in a decade's time. I can remember back to when Japan was the 'dirty' industrial nation (anyone else remember Minimata?) but they 'cleaned-up' in the blink of an eye.

Anyway, while its sort of unfair to single out the US for criticism, it is fair to say the US is the nation that needs most to change. I honestly believe that Americans see the world through a distorting prism. This prism makes things look normal & acceptable to US citizens but take away the prism and things look very strange & often as not, dangerous. Guns, drugs, police thuggery, obscene levels of obesity, having armed forces that could take in the entire rest of the world and win, being best buddies with a nuclear armed regional bully and in the context of this thread, the gross inefficiency of the cars you drive & your willful blindness to see how this might impact the world...well all I can say is it looks very weird...



Your blindness to how Western Europe has offshored so much of its emissions to areas with no SOX or NOX controls is quite its own distorting prism.

As far as "not doing anything at all", how do you know that's true of the OP? It certainly isn't true in my case, yet another paradigm distorting prism a blind eye is turned to. As far as comparing driving a utility vehicle on a non-utility doctor visit, that's the proverbial flatulence in a whirlwind compared to the emissions offshored by Western Europe. I've been to Curacao 8 times and Aruba once on scuba diving vacations and have seen the truth firsthand, and these places have had multiple decades to install improvements but economics of lowest cost production returning currency to the area outweighs any push for regulatory changes. At least Curacao incinerates their garbage with thermal recuperation to an asphalt facility these days. Not long ago it was all cast into the Caribbean Sea at a spot now named Basora in the local Papiementu dialect, which means trash / garbage. Now it causes CO2 emissions. Oh dear!

I see nothing driving anything but window dressing at best on environmental emissions changes in China nor India. I think your crystal ball is faulty and use the Dutch Caribbean to support my case empirically.

A lot of things in Europe look really weird. The ratio of Europeans to Texans who own a trailer mounted BBQ pit is vanishingly small, with me again emitting not only CO2 but CO deliberately to achieve proper Texas BBQ traditional smoked flavor, running an inefficient combustion process to cook my food instead of electric power from a local lignite fired power plant. And the perspective of
'rural' vs the reality for example Texas where we measure distances in travel times more so than miles, most highways including 2 lane rural ones have speed limits of 70 MPH and proudly have a stretch of highway with the highest speed limit in the US at 85 MPH. I grew up when the 55 MPH speed limits were forced on the states by the federal government and empiricism shows it was a flawed social experiment here.

I'm glad we have diversity in this world; I'm glad Texas is not like any part of Europe.

Just curious, how did you personally justify the emissions to travel to South Africa? It's not out of medical reasons like a doctor visit, is it?

 

[SonofJoe]

Like I said, I'm toddling off now.

However I would just like to take a moment to thank our nice Mr Wilson for not canning this thread. Sometimes diametrically opposing views do need to be expressed if only to make people question how they see the world. Despite the expressions of outrage and great gnashing of teeth, I thought the level of discourse was quite high and we kept the [censored] count to just one.

I'll no doubt be posting on other threads. Feel free to challenge what I say and even try to bite great chunks out of me. I have a thick skin and am as easy with taking it back as dishing it out in the first place.

Night night all...

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

I guess since we're going for a locked thread, why not?

We believe in freedom of choice and that the market will dictate what is needed here in the US, whereas Europe believes in taxing everything that should be a corporate responsibility and placing the financial burden onto the backs of the people, and regulating everything artificially through the flawed world view of some aristocrats.

If memory serves... which place has needed bailed out of two world wars in the past century? And who did they call to save them? Mmmhmm, that's what I thought. Free market and the republican form of government FTW!

BTW I still like French pastries and German schnitzel, oh and the Swedish bikini team. Those are OK

 

[Nyogtha]

I enjoy an honest discussion, but any smug position of superiority vs those who are different is what I find objectionable. I dislike the whole concept of a homogenous, banal, one-world society. Orwell's works come to mind. My favorite quote from Thoreau IIRC goes "If a man comes up to you and says he's going to do something for your own good, you shoukd run as fast as possible in the opposite direction!" I'm more pugnacious than Thoreau, challenging such approaches and generally being charachterized as a troublemaker for not just going along to get along by those who advocate such an approach.

 

[Silverado12]

What's kind of funny is that SonofJoe is flying all around the world burning more fuel than my V-8 cars but not realizing he's actually contributing more to pollution than I am. I burn an extra 20 gal a month by having a less fuel efficient car (averages 21 mpg city/highway). The Mustang does more or less the same. I also live in a small house compared to a most in the USA so the heat, cooling costs and energy use are less.

 

[Silverado12]

But that doesn't necessarily mean I shouldn't try to do more to create less emissions. When I replace my Mustang, I will more than likely get a Malibu (36 mpg highway) to replace it. Sorry, but I just can't do an econobox anymore.

 

[Nyogtha]

Surely SonOfJoe rode his Vespa to the Chunnel, took a low or zero emissions ferry across the Med, then motored down to the southern tip of the African continent rather than "doing nothing" about the situation traveling by air or cruise ship with "an attitude that belongs in the school playground", on holiday, is using that same Vespa for all excursions while on holiday, and will retutn riding his Vespa using the same methods at the Med and Chunnel.

 

[Quattro Pete]

 

[SatinSilver]

 

[Number_35]

I'm old, and still convert fuel consumption from SI (litres/100 km) to the Imperial MPG I was used to into young adulthood, and so think of 18.9 MPG US as 22.7 MPG Imperial. That sounds really good for a 3/4-ton truck!

FWIW, my work truck for quite a few years was a 2002 Ford F-350 w/ the 6.8 litre V10, and we routinely ran at about 9 MPG Imperial (30+ l/100 km) when towing three ATVs on a flatdeck trailer on the highway, and 14 MPG Imperial (20 l/100 km) on the open road unloaded. Short trips around town in the winter were atrocious. But, it served us well for 11 years, and never left us stranded or required an expensive repair over that time.

It was replaced by a 2013 Chevy 2500 w/ the 6.0 l V8 which easier on gas but is harsher-riding and has not been as reliable. Nothing major, but not bulletproof like the Ford.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Originally Posted By: SubieRubyRoo
ARCO, get an Outback. It should be much better, even keeping AWD, CVT, and nearly 3500lbs. But I'm clearly biased

I was thinking about a Legacy. But I think I want to shift and have sports car again. I don't like "showy" cars though.

Best deal seems to be the 370Z sport. Low 30s outlay. Its the REAl deal not a phony; problem is, I Don't know if Nissan will stand behind it. They wouldn't warranty anything that died so far IN WARRANTY.

 

[jakewells]

i get 17 highway since i replaced the rear axle with a better highway gear in my 94 f150 2x4 short bed with a 302/4r70