Hero wrote:
There's no lemonade to be made in my case
We'll, you can drive the little guy till the doors fall off (or the Chrysler components disintegrate around the still clacking diesel engine in a couple 100,000 miles). Remember, we do have the benefit of a diesel engine that will outlast gassers by a wide margin.
American's generally have a very short time horizon on vehicles, looking to trade their current one in for something new in a couple years. Financially, this makes no sense at all, as even the best german or japanese cars depreciate so quickly that they are a terrible place to park $$. Cars are tools, you buy them to do a job not to be an investment. Extend your time horizon and the economics look better.
In my neighborhood, diesel is currently 4.79 a gallon, regular unleaded is 4.14... at those prices, I come out ahead of a gasser KJ that struggles to hit 20 mpg (and WAY WAY ahead of most other vehicles capable of towing 5000 pounds comfortably). Factor into that the lower frequency of oil changes (every 6-10k instead of every 3k) and things look better still.
I'm not saying the CRD is a great investment or that diesel prices don't hurt, but I think a lot of panic people are having is irrational. Even if you got 18k for your CRD and traded it in on a 23k Prius, you'd be losing FAR more money due to the extra cost (and financing) over the next 5 years than you will to fuel costs by keeping the Jeep.
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