A little about Chas

[chasgood]

PT Cruiser GT high output 2.4L turbo engine.
215hp at 5000rpm
245ft-lbs torque at 3600rpm.

Consumer reports, lists the performance as follows.
0-30 mph, sec. 2.8
0-60 mph, sec. 7.0
Quarter mile, sec. 15.6
Quarter mile, mph91
45-65 mph, sec. 4.3
CU's overall mileage, mpg22
CU's city/highway, mpg17/27
CU's 150-mile trip, mpg25
Sticker says, mpg19/25
My overall mileage, mpg21

My last car was a 1996 Acura Integra.

I work in fuels (mainly jet fuel) for a contractor at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. Take care of the fuel yard and refuel the planes.

Been on the internet since 1995. It was a 28,8 dial up modem and a 486 66mhz computer back then with a whooping 16meg of ram.
Cox cable modem now on a home made P4 2.4ghz overclocked to 2.85ghz system with 1.5gig of DDR ram.

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by chasgood

Been on the internet since 1995. It was a 28,8 dial up modem and a 486 66mhz computer back then with a whooping 16meg of ram.
Cox cable modem now on a home made P4 2.4ghz overclocked to 2.85ghz system with 1.5gig of DDR ram.

Glad to know you I was around pre-internet... I had my 2400bps modem on my 386 SX with 16 megahurtz. I ran my own Bulletin Board back then. The hard drive had 20 megs, and I think I had 2 megs of ram. Those were the days.

Back in those days things like the hampster dance were actually entertaining.

[SVOboy]

I'm 17. I dunno this stuff you speak of, how scary. I wonder what made you nix the integra though Chas? It's a lovely car, I think, it's got a good center console too.

PS: if anyone is selling a 94-00 integra center console in black or grey...

The PT cruiser boosts to 12.8 eh? Can you control to maximum boost or is that out of your hands?

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by SVOboy

I'm 17. I dunno this stuff you speak of, how scary. I wonder what made you nix the integra though Chas? It's a lovely car, I think, it's got a good center console too.

PS: if anyone is selling a 94-00 integra center console in black or grey...

I second that. I don't care about color though... I'll just paint it

[chasgood]

I loved the Integra. best car I ever owned. I was getting older and a bit heavier. Got harder to get in and out of all the time. Also got tired of shifting. The more gas goes up the more I wish I had kept it. 6 years old and only 78,000 when I got rid of it. Sold it for half of what I paid new. It really held its value.
Had the PT close to 3 years and I'm ready to trade it in. Waiting for the reviews of the new Civic to see if it gives me new car fever. The 06 Civic is all new. Goes on sale Sept 15. Other cars I'm looking at online are the Mazda 3 Wagon and the VW Jetta Wagon with the TDI deisel engine. Maybe even the VW Golf with the same deisel. Heard of people getting 48mpg on the highway with the VW TDI engines.

[SVOboy]

The 48 mpg is the epa ratings, but you can beat it I think. Best of all is you can run grease. The new civic hybrid is sposed to be awesome cuz it switched over to being a full hybrid like the prius, I would reccomend it big time.

[Matt Timion]

The new Civic (non-hybrid) has a 1.8L that gets the gas mileage of a 1.5L and the HP of a 2.0L. It's really a slick machine. I have no idea though why they didn't make it have a 1.3 with the gas mileage of 1.0 and the power of a 1.8. But then again I'm not designing these cars.

Before you buy the hybrid consider how long it will take you to break even if you buy a non-hybrid. While hybrids get better gas mileage, they also usually end up costing many thousands more. I read today somewhere that it would take over 300000 miles to break even if you bought a Prius over a Civic LX.

Anyway, the Jetta looks hot, and as SVOBoy mentioned you can run biodiesel or straight grease on them. EPA ratings are usally misleading.

Read this: http://www.gassavers.org/node/12 and this: http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,63413,00.html before you buy any car.

If you still want an automatic, you might be able to find one of Honda's CIVIC HX, or even the CX. They were built for fuel economy, and one of them (forget which one) has this totally awesome single long adjustable geared automatic transmission that gets the same gas mileage as a manual transmission.

Either way, let us know what you get...

[chasgood]

Not sure if you guys visit the temple of vtec but heres the url. http://www.vtec.net/

Lots of info on the new civic there.

Heres another great site. http://www.hondapreview.com/

If you want a new gas sipper and dont mind something smaller than a Civic (more the size of the Scion) then wait till spring when Honda gives us a FIT. info on the Fit (name may change) is at http://www.hondapreview.com/fit/index.htm

[SVOboy]

Thanks for the links, I was looking for things like this for doing some research on the new models anyway, so that works, ^_^