Daihatsu hello

[farmerjohn]

Originally Posted by BEEF

that's pretty cool. I would love to see some pics of the engine.

my first car was a geo metro and it was a 1 liter 3 cylinder (1000cc). is yours a 2 or 3 cylinder. if I had to guess I would think it was a v twin or similar. largest thing we have with that engine around here would either be a motorcycle or an ATV.

How did you like the Geo? I always wanted a Subaru Justy at that time.

Yeah, it's a 3 cylinder, think it's inline but will check. It's funny when I go home and see ATV's with bigger engines than my car, and Harleys with double my cc, unreal.

I always thought what would be best for this kind of light van is a 1000cc diesel. But due to the vehicle registration tax laws, 660cc class vehicle is the cheapest to register at about 70$ per year.

I'll try and get some engine and interior pics up soon

[GasSavers_BEEF]

I really enjoyed my metro. it was a 1993 model. I was 16 at the time and I didn't care anything about mileage as gas was 89 cents per gallon here. I got rid of it shortly after I turned 20 as I moved to the foothills and it had a really hard time pulling the hills. it was very bare bones. no a/c, no power steering, and crank windows.

I would love to see a small diesel in the US market. unfortunitely we are very strict on diesels. I wish we would relax those laws and get more over here. smart and mini both have diesels that get great mileage but not legal here.

if you want to get your numbers on your gas log right, you can multiply divide your kilometers per liter by (0.4251437) and convert to MPG.

right now you are showing 15.07 which is kilomters per liter so that would be 35.4468.... MPG. and you may not even care but it gives you a better comparison to the rest of us.

pretty good considering it is a van and i assume you do a lot of city like driving

[farmerjohn]

Thanks for the help converting the figures. Yes, mostly city-like driving even though I live in the country. They're also cracking down on passenger diesels here, why I don't know. There are very few available, no VW's. The Nissan X-trail (pathfinder) has a clean diesel but is 40K$.
Put up some engine pics at my garage. Check out the funky spark plug? covers on the passenger side, I wonder if there are even plugs in there?

[GasSavers_BEEF]

actually those aren't your spark plugs (kind of). you have coil on plugs. basically you don't have any plug wires. the coil is right on top of the plug so you don't have the loss of the plug wire. what you are actually seeing is the coil (3 of them)

I had a truck one time that had that set up but it was an 8 cyl. I have heard that it is really expensive to replace them if they go bad. I didn't have the truck long enough to worry about it.

it's kind of set up like the old VW busses (from the 60s and 70s). it is a neat little vehicle. I like the sliding back doors. I have a 2 year old daughter and had a minivan for a while and though I really dislike minivans I really liked the sliding doors. my car is a 2 door so I have to pop the seat forward every time to get her in and out.