A couple years ago life events inspired me to move out and away the town where I lived and worked since the early 90’s. Since some things can’t be planned I was used to a non-existent commute and enjoyed weekend adventuring. This led me to purchase a Toyota FJ Cruiser. It takes me places nothing else can and gives us a way to get to some amazing camp sites. The only drawback for this was the low MPG.

With my life change I’ve moved to a wonderful home that is adjacent to open space in the Santa Monica Mountains and fell in love with the area. My commute went from a 5 minute walk to 58 miles r/t. The FJ is still fun to drive but the 4 gallon a day habit has been getting old and I’ve kept the idea of a commuter car in the back of my mind.

I looked at quite a few cars: an old used 30+ mpg’er, something more recent like one of the hybrids or the TDI, or to wait for some untested plug-in electric.

Recent reports of the Chevy Volt weren’t encouraging. The range is a measly 40 miles before an engine kicks in. Great for around town but this isn’t going to work if something unexpected comes up and I don’t have a charging station at work. This sounds too much like a hybrid and not worth the increased price. Low Voltage.

Not committed to getting anything I just kept an eye out for something without doing much heaving thinking about it.

One weekend my fiancée took me out to test drive a car she was looking at. On the way to the test drive we popped by a Smart/Mercedes dealership. It was almost impossible to get someone there to help us, they didn’t seem interested in selling something that wasn’t a Mercedes. When we finally got the attention of a well tanned chesty sales woman we got to give one of the Smart cars a drive. It really does feel bigger than it is. I was concerned about its longevity and the price or having one repaired in a Mercedes service shop. I’ve had a Volvo and the repair costs on that far outweighed the Starbucks tokens they provided. It’s going to take more that a little flash of a breast to sell me car. She never gave a followup call about a couple questions I left her with. I wonder if things would have been different if I test drove the SL 550. Not Smart.

After this we popped by a Mazda dealer and found that they don’t really have anything that’ll do more than 30 mpg. The Miata’s are fun to drive but not for me, I need extra seats to cram my kids into.

I test drove the VW Convertible Bug my fiancée ended up getting and liked how it handled. Quite different from my 1968 Beetle, but still it’s a Bug. While waiting for the sale to finish up I asked about the TDI’s.

They have a few 2010 TDI models, I wasn’t picky and wanted to see what the basic model drove like. They only had a Manual Transmission, so out I went with it. Fun! I like it.

I went home, opened up Numbers on my iPad and played with MPG estimates and other things to figure out if this could work. The math looked good and the incentives were unexpected.

I got a Jetta TDI Manual Transmission. My original estimates at 40 MPG showed that I’ll save over $200 a month on gas alone. In reality it’s quite different. Far better than the 15-17 MPG I was getting.