We have had three Echos in our family, owned by two of my sons and a
daughter. They are basic transportation, good gas mileage, room inside for
even me (front seat), but there's not much to get excited about driving one.
And oh, don't get off the pavement with one. If there is a rock the size of
an plum in front of you, you might want to go around it.
I'm not too concerned about the current green hype, but I wanted good
mileage. I listened to the sales pitch about VW's from both a dealer and a
couple friends who have them.Then I tried test drives in VW Jetta's. At
6'1", I don't fit, well at least not comfy. Are Germans generally smaller
people than Japanese? They don't appear to be.
My Pontiac Vibe (aka toyota matrix) is rated at 45 mpg hwy mileage (gov't
ratings) for automatic transmission, and the VW Jetta diesel with standard
transmission is rated at 62mpg.
Based on the 24,000 kilometers I drove the Vibe from May 2006 to May 2007,
with an average price of about 80 cents per litre (actual cost for me where
I buy most of my gas in the US), and allowing for a small percentage
reduction to what is realistic mileage in both (I get about 38 mpg with the
Vibe), if I cramped myself into the VW and was willing to shift the standard
tranny at my age, I could save enough ($600 cdn.) on fuel to buy a used
Olympus E1 in about 2 years. Of course, overall saving would be given the
same repair record for the Toyota as the VW (big joke to me based on
friend's experience), and the same price tag/purchase price (okay this is a
really big joke). So I bought the Vibe, and with the money I'm saving over
the VW diesel, I'm quite certain I should be ready to buy the next E3
thingy, or whatever it will be called, when it actually comes out. In fact,
I could buy several.
Okay, at least I managed to bring this post around to on topic :-)
wayne
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