My friends new diesel Jetta pulls 55-60 MPG.

A/C pulls more.
Emissions equipment pulls more (soot filters, mufflers, etc)
Heavier cars (brakes destroy energy. period.)
Larger cars (drag force due to air is the cross sectional area times coefficient of drag)
Higher speed limits
Poor driving habits

As for Dodge, there's plenty of stories on YouTube and online about people driving Dodge trucks whose transmission died in less than 20,000 miles, was rebuilt, and died again. At which point, Chrysler would refuse warranty or something similar. I'm sure there's a class action lawsuit somewhere. There's a reason Nissan took the third place best truck seller from Dodge (with the "Titan") : Quality.

If you consider slowing down and/or stopping useless. The heat itself isn't much use, but it's the byproduct of a useful transfer of energy, so I'd say it serves a purpose...

I read online a comparison between the new diesel Jetta and a shitty Prius, the jetta did even worse than the Prius' 44 or so MPG.. But I suppose the people reviewing it could've been morons(or perhaps weren't actually comparing the diesel like they said). Now I won't only have to consider a 30 year old vehicle(and thank god, old rabbits in good condition without rust are hard to find).

As for everything else, I have no idea what you're rambling about. Newer cars aren't generally larger or heavier. And likely have better aerodynamics.

As for newer chrysler transmissions, I suppose I'm not surprised if any of their new 4, 5, or 6 speed automatics suck. Pretty much any big vehicle we've had with a 4 speed automatic needed an overhaul almost constantly, and they were GMs. The only exception is my dad's 95 truck which has a 727 in it with an overdrive extension on the back.

Though admittedly my sister's Durango she just got has a transmission leak, I have no idea how many miles are on it, it's not exactly new.

1. Prius battery pack is a wearing part and needs to be replaced a few times during the car's lifetime. In this process the old battery pack becomes toxic waste, and the new battery pack costs a lot of money. When servicing is taken into account, the Prius becomes actually less ecological and economical than a modern diesel.

2. Diesel fuel is significantly cheaper than gasoline outside north america.

3. Car journalists as a rule suck at driving economically. 4l/100km is not even difficult task for any diesel car from the last decade.

Unfortunately you're wrong. Most long lasting model lines have in fact, grown up a size class during their life span.

Examine the weights of the Volkswagen Golf (that's Rabbit for the north american market):
1979: 790kg 1983: 850kg 1991: 960kg 1997: 1170 2003: 1150kg.

Worth noting that from the 1997 model onwards the Golf's ongoing growth in size caused it to shift class from supermini to small family car.

Or how about the competing model range from Peugeot: 1983 205: 750kg, 1993 206: 1025kg, 2007 207: 1250kg.

We can even compare Peugeot's large family car range: 1955 403: 1050kg, 1961 404: 1050kg, 1983 405: 1050kg, 1996 406: 1300kg, 2004 407: 1500kg.

How about the Toyota Corolla then, it's a nice long-lasting model: 1966: 700kg, 1970: 730kg, 1974: 865g, 1979: 840, 1983: 890kg, 1987: 930kg, 1991: 990kg, 1995: 1100kg, 2000: 1050kg, 2003: 1030kg, 2007: 1220kg.

You can see this same development in pretty much any model that has lasted from the early 80's to the present day.

And also ugly as hell.

Well, that's because they're GMs. You just need trannies that don't suck.

Don't forget that by the time you start to break even on the added cost of buying a hybrid is when the battery pack needs replacement.

Hybrids aren't very useful or a good idea IMO. They're just for those rich folk with more bank than brain who want to feel like they're helping the environment without actually doing anything. I say we start driving CNG powered cars - that will buy us time w/o oil worries to start building nuke plants and making hydrogen.

Most definitely. I had a friend who had a Golf. And it said Golf on the car, not Rabbit.

The increase in weight over time might have a lot to do with safety standards. For example, the Volkswagen Golf Mk.1 was a death trap, and I'm guessing the new Golfs are not.

It's an acquired taste..!

Just one quick addition to clarify this before it expands:

It has none to do with safety. Newer cars are safer by design--by correct placement of structural loads. Gas-charged airbags weigh nothing. ABS electronics weigh nothing. Moreover, aluminum block engines cut the weigh of engines by hundreds of pounds over their cast iron counterparts. Plastic manifolds do the same, over aluminum ones. My Jetta has plastic water pump blades (although I do NOT approve of that for durability reasons.)

So drive trains are getting lighter, but cars are getting heavier.

One of my biggest pet peaves is large rims. The larger the rim, the heavier the rim, the more the unsprung weight of the suspension system. This results in worse feeling and handling of your cars suspension (unsprung inertia has to be moved before the suspension system even begins to follow the road). If big rims were good, why do NO professional race cars use them? Once again, the car companies have settled with form over function (as if 18" rims really looked good to begin with).

I used to watch all of the automotive TV shows that they used to have (predominantly on TNT -> Spike TV) on weekends. And IIRC, they each said that larger rims result in better handling. I assume because of stiffer tires. The downside being ride quality, I assume because there's less give in the tires. I've never had a car with large rims so I can't say.

I think large rims look better than standard-sized rims, but they need to suit the car too. Some cars look great with smaller rims. For example, cop cars look good with their traditional rims and would look wrong with large rims. I also think most trucks look silly with large rims. And really, if you want a vehicle with good handling, a large pickup truck is the wrong place to start, so there's little to no performance benefits to it as well. So trucks usually look silly with large rims. Some cars though, predominantly sports cars and tuners, can look awesome with large rims.

Ride softness (all things equal with suspension and car weight) depends on the aspect ratio of the tire. A higher aspect yields a better softness (more travel within the air/rubber than going through the suspension) but yields more tread distortion (and subsequently less road handling adhesion).

Bigger tires radially in racing are for increasing the heat dissipation and reducing the heat generated in tire sidewalls. Less sidewall deflection given a certain weight means less internal heat generated from the flexing, and larger tires allow the flexing region longer time to cool before flexing again.

Bigger tires sideways don't increase the coefficient of friction (so no more road handling benefit), they only increase the possible area on the ground for that coefficient to occur in as well as spread out the force trying to rip the rubber off.

I've heard that with less flex, manufacturers can use harder, better gripping rubber without it suffering from cracking due to sidewall flex. However, I have no source for that.

So the benefits of a larger rim size are: Cooling and to a lesser extent, higher probability of reaching the maximum coefficient of friction.

The drawbacks, however, are weight and aerodynamics. A wider tire increases your cross sectional area, and creates a larger wake both behind it and from the grooves; which increases your coefficient of drag. The weight is especially important because the quality of your ride can be expressed in the ratio of sprung weight to unsprung weight. The lower the number (the more weight not held up by the suspension), the more the entire body will move given the same amount of suspension travel. In other words, a car with super-light suspension can theoretically move it's tires over bumps without any real force entering the car it suspends. You can drive over any bumps without even feeling it. The more you weigh down your wheels, the more force you're putting into your car before the wheel can react.

Another factor is rotational inertia. You engine has to spin up itself, the drive train, and your wheels. The heavier that is, the slower your car accelerates for the same power output and body weight. The inertia of a uniform rotating disc about its axis is I=MR^2. Where M is mass and R is radius. So increasing either of those makes your car slower still. But it's worse for a wheel! A wheel has much more of its mass further from its center than a uniform disc, so the formula changes to something even higher.

Softer tires tend to grip better, hence "gumball" drag slicks. For rigid bodies, friction doesn't depend on area so much as pressure and composition of materials. At least, I read that in a book, which urged me to measure friction of pulling a brick across a wooden table in various positions with a spring scale.

But tires aren't rigid, so more pressure causes roughness of the road to dig into the tread a little bit, like gear teeth. Also, "dead" rubber (that would make a ball that wouldn't bounce) will absorb energy as the rough points slide along the tread.

Reducing unsprung weight is mostly so the weight of the car isn't overwhelmed by the bouncing of the tires mass as you hit bumps. Think of attaching a little plastic model to some regular car tires and roll it across a speed bump. The whole thing will fly up in the air quite easily. Old Cadillacs had a reputation for a smoother ride than the equivalent body style Chevys, because a couple hundred pounds of extra plushness held the car steadier while the tires jumped up and down over potholes and bumps.

Since the car is steadier, the springs and shocks can do a much better job of holding the tire to the ground at a relatively steady pressure, which results in better traction.