I stopped in and looked at a Toyota Prius the other day. 45-50 mpg, lifetime warrantee on mechanicals, 8 year warrantee on batteries. Very tempting. Then I went home and thought about it. For the $25,000+ a Prius would cost, I could turn the '83 300D into a like-new car and have plenty of money left over to buy the extra fuel a Prius would have saved. If the fuel situation should get extremely bad, both MBs could be converted to run on VO. (I wonder how many acres of soybeans it would take to yield a years supply of VO; about 1000 gallons? I have a few acres that could be contract farmed.
IMHO fuel prices will eventually be coming down. Plants are rapidly being built to extract oil from tar sands, and speculators won't be able to keep prices jacked up forever. Gerry '83 300D and 240D ---------------------------------------------------- > You go Brian! > You'll have my vote for the rebuild vs. a new purchase. :) > Dave H... > -------------------------------------------------- > From: "Zoltan Finks" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> And this IMHO is the true key to making any real difference - just a >> little >> change or two in the behaviors of us all. >> No tree hugging here. But I do shake my head often at what I see around >> me. >> Maybe folks don't have to give up their Suburban or big 4x4 - I mean >> that's not going to happen. (heck, even here in the "socialist state of >> Washington", I see more full sized 4x4s and SUVs than efficient cars - >> this has been a surprise to me) But maybe people could, once a week, >> forego driving. And maybe they could wake up and not mash the accelerator >> by default every time they take off. Okay, slipped into rant mode there. I have taken a much closer look lately, though, at what is sold to us as environmentally friendly. I hear the deeper issues surrounding bio and ethanol and hybrids, and I just revert to my belief that just a few little behavior mods are the real key. Oh, and someone mentioned that their 123s were keep-forever cars. I feel that way too! But just last night my wife reiterated her stance that we should drive these cars 'til they go belly up and then we should move on to something else. Well, actually, she did say that we should hang onto the 240D. I argue that these are classics (I even feel that way about our 190D) and nothing is going to come along that is going to be better in any true sense. I say let's just rebuild the engine or tranny when they go. Heck isn't that more enviro. friendly compared to contributing to the manufacture of new cars? Brian Timothy shared:I like to think I'm enviromentally responsible. That's why I pulled out of traffic last night, stopped the engine and killed an hour at the auto parts place... because I conserved another trip. _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new parts see official list sponsor: http://www.buymbparts.com/ For used parts email [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
