Recently I saw a clip on TV about a new Honda diesel. It gets 75 mpg and will go 130 mph. Not in U.S. as of yet. Can anyone confirm this? Thanks, Joe

Been hearing rumors about this for quite a while, if true, Honda promises to be revolutionary as usual.

Every time I read about the new hybrids coming out all I can think about is keeping these things running in 5 or 10 years. What a nightmare/stealership dream this will be. This (Honda)and other improved diesel designs will hopefully give hybrid technology an early demise.

Given recent history of the respective car companies I respect the engineers of Honda far more than their Mercedes counterparts.

Has Honda ever made an automobile that was not inexpensive, reliable and long lasting? What makes you think they will not continue this trend with their hybrids?

Bring em on - Mercedes needs a wake up call.

Link to Honda Story:

http://www.vtec.net/news/news-item?news_item_id=234399

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Dave

1982 300D
352,000 miles

Yeah, its a 2.2L common rail engine in an Accord body. I've read about it getting 75 mpg in one test, but according to another article I read 48-52 mpg is more like it in mixed driving. It goes zero to sixty in like 9 sec. and has a top speed in the low 130s. The same article said the car would kill sales of Mercedes 220CDI C class. As I recall you only could get it as a 5 speed manual (fine by me ) I hope Honda does bring it here.

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Tjohn

82 300 SD
77 450 SL (gone)

Even 52mpg is an awesome figure with a performance of that calliber, had high expectations from Honda and it looks like they delivered right up, 5 speed is all I would prefer from Honda as they are really silky smooth shifts.

All of the information I've seen on this vehicle has been from Europe. In particular, the fuel economy specs I saw were based on the UK gallon. For example, I saw 48 mpg on this UK site:
UK Accord 2.2i-ctdi Diesel Information

The important part here is that 1 US gallon = 0.8327 UK gallons, so 48 UK mpg = 39.9 US MPG. This is still impressive, but it's also very comparable to other modern diesel cars like the VW TDI or MB CDI.

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1989 250TD Wagon 5-speed, 160,000mi ::: Dark gray metallic / black cloth
1984 190D-2.2 5-speed, 287,000mi ::: Silver-blue metallic / black MB-tex ::: SOLD

1 imperial (UK) gallon = 1.20095 US gallons.

so 48 UK mpg = 57.65 US mpg.

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Michael LaFleur

'05 E320 CDI - 86,000 miles
'86 300SDL - 360,000 miles
'85 300SD - 150,000 miles (sold)
'89 190D - 120,000 miles (sold)
'85 300SD - 317,000 miles (sold)
'98 ML320 - 270,000 miles (sold)
'75 300D - 170,000 miles (sold)
'83 Harley Davidson FLTC (Broken again) :-(
'61 Plymouth Valiant - 60k mikes
2004 Papillon (Oliver)
2005 Tzitzu (Griffon)
2009 Welsh Corgi (Buba)

I might buy that...

But not that! It's a common problem - one has a conversion factor, but stumbles over whether multiplication or division should be used. To keep it straight, I always "multiply by 1" when converting units. The numerator and denominator of this "well-chosen 1" should be such that the unwanted units cancel, leaving behind the desired ones.

This may seem to be pedantic, but that's because this is a simple conversion. Where it really shines is by allowing one to perform a whole series of conversions all at once without getting lost - the units keep track of themselves.


-- eskimo

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You can do the conversions at http://www.tdiclub.com/misc/conversions.html if you want to double-check my #s. They use the term 'imperial' instead of 'UK', but it's the same thing.

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1989 250TD Wagon 5-speed, 160,000mi ::: Dark gray metallic / black cloth
1984 190D-2.2 5-speed, 287,000mi ::: Silver-blue metallic / black MB-tex ::: SOLD

I had a 2003 Civic Hybrid, and the technology was still buggy and nowhere near as refined as I had expected from Honda. Also the rattles were driving me crazy! And how about the transmission recalls on 2001 Accords? A coworker of mine had his recalled too late as the transmission had already blown up on him. Honda is not bad, but just like Mercedes I feel it used to be better.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL