Folks often ask me, “what’s the ‘greenest’ car?” This is one of my favorite questions, because it can spur deeper conversation. Some people are shocked when I reply that the ‘greenest’ car is a recycled car. “Wait a minute,” comes the typical response, “a used car … for real?”
They often expect that I would answer with “oh, a (insert the most common name here) hybrid or an electric car (like the one that’s caught the tech world’s fancy that real world folks can’t afford).” Truth be told, 40 mile per gallon (MPG) cars are nothing new. You can find a ten or fifteen year old Honda Civic HX or Volkswagen TDI on eBay that will get 40 MPG on the highway. The older VW Jetta, Golf, Passat, and Beetle TDIs can even run on 100 domestic renewable biodiesel. Vintage Mercedes-Benz diesels can run on biodiesel as well, and they can all be converted to run on recycled fryer grease. There are great bargains to be found on fuel-efficient Saturns, too …
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me an old fryer-grease-powered Mercedes-Benz. All my friends slobber over Teslas, I must make amends …
A good friend of mine has one of those wicked cool big ol’ Mercs … One of these days, I’ll twist his arm into testing …
I shot this piece in my backyard for a promotion that eBay is running. Check out that bamboo in the background. The camera couldn’t decide whether or not to focus on yours truly or the bamboo (a.k.a.: my personal backyard carbon sink).
I don’t usually fall for contests, but this presented an opportunity to share the gospel on a new stage. All used cars can become more fuel efficient through MPGomatic’s Ain’t Fuelin’ Mindful Maintenance program. Bolt on a set of low-rolling-resistance tires, fill up with synthetic fluids, and pop in an OBDII Instant MPG gauge and you’ll be on your way to beating the original “official” estimates (minus today’s E10 MPG penalty, of course). If it’s a diesel, of course, there’s no worry …
– by Daniel Gray