Meet Dieter (a.k.a the Passat TDI)

motortrend.com

In my normal life, I drive a very standard car that might rhyme with Shonda. But this week, Carlos, the executive manager at Ken Garff Volkswagon of Orem let me take one his beauties off the lot.

I confess, I was intimidated.  Me?  Driving around in a diesel-powered Passat? It seemed counter-intuitive to my white-bread-middle-class self.  But I was curious.  I'd been reading for a while about how diesel is essentially the new black in fuel, so off I drove.

Let me just say, it took me about one second to fall in love.

Hallo, Dieter.... Where have YOU been all my life?

Honestly.

This is a car that begs to be driven.  It almost felt wasted on city streets because it's so elegantly powerful. I hardly wanted to drive it from stoplight to stoplight, so I decided to grab a friend and go find out what Dieter was made of.

We loaded up and headed up the canyon on a photo shoot. Let it be known, that you can get a lot of stuff in the back seat of a Passat! I was a little bit amazed. But as impressive as that was, I was about to be a lot more impressed.  

Let me just tell you a couple of reasons why.

A) This car is whisper quiet. If we hadn't been moving, I wouldn't have known the car was even running.

B) You can go from 0 to 80 without feeling a single thing but pure joy.

C) We drove all over kingdom come (literally...we did the whole Alpine Loop, Stewart Falls, Midway, and back.) and barely touched any fuel.

I was shocked.  I've made that drive a fair few times, and chewed through a half a tank of gas (and thought nothing of it!).

So let's talk about how that was even possible.  Because the Passat isn't a little light-weight, under-powered, commuter car.  This is a driving machine with serious prowess that can cut through mountain curves like butter.

The secret is in the TDI clean diesel.  Get the quick and painless overview here.  But for the moment, I'll give you some stats that might blow your mind a little bit.

Ready?

• Clean Diesel partner vehicles are on average 18% more fuel-efficient on the highway than their gasoline counterparts 
• Over one-third of Clean Diesel partner vehicles getting an EPA-estimated 42 MPG hwy
• Clean Diesel vehicles run much more quietly than those powered by their traditional diesel counterparts. Let's just say, you've got to hear it to believe it.
• Clean Diesel that meets the highest standards in all 50 states, thanks to ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel and innovative engine technology that burns cleaner.

Impressive.  

Believe me when I say that I was reluctant to hand back the keys. Driving the Passat TDI was like a luxury vacation.  Because beyond all the well-engineered power under the hood, it also had the most remarkably perfect steering wheel.

Great driving: it's all in the details...