"Rudolf Diesel was the father of the engine which bears his name. His first attempts were to design an engine to run on coal dust, but later designed his engine to run on vegetable oil."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_oil_fuel

---too bad the previous owners may not have known what they were doing.

I can not understand the aversion that the American public has to the diesel...they think noisy, smelly, slow...but they are so wrong!

I have been driving diesels since 1981 (and I still have that original diesel Rabbit...even dropped a turbo on it after driving it 250K miles!) and wouldn't drive anything else. I now have a TDI and it is far superior to the original mechanically injected "can of marbles" that I used to drive. It is quiet, doesn't smoke, has gobs of power and gets great fuel economy. I get 5.5 l/100 km (that's 43 MPG for you "regular" folk) and that's running 120 KPH down the highway!

Over here in Europe you see just about everything with a diesel in it...Mercedes, VW, Volvo, BMW, Toyota, Audi...and the list goes on and on. And diesel is cheaper than gas (I guess that is because you can't pass on the higher cost to the end user as a "fuel surcharge" like the truckers in the US do...) by about 15 or 20% which combined with the greater efficiency makes it a very smart choice.

One of these days John Q. Public is going to wake up and realize what they have been missing and get on board with the rest of the world.

" My diesel Escort is the only car I've ever owned that total strangers have yelled at angrily."

A place I worked at years ago had the Ford escorts as the main fleet vehicles and I can attest to why a total stranger would yell angerly at one! What a POS they where.

You know why they called them Escorts? Because just like a female Escort (IE hooker) you would eventually become just as ashamed to seen in public with it.

POS = Point Of Sale?

what does the original author mean my POS?

Point of Sale...good one!

POS = Piece Of Sh!t.

To me the diesel truck is the most "macho" vehicle a man can drive. The sound means power. How can anyone not feel insignificent when a huge Peterbilt looms up on you in your rear view mirror. I've owned three diesels, one Peigeot, a Mitsubishi and a Ford F350 crew cab. All were great vehicles.