Well, found a couple things out this weekend... Went to Neveda, up by the
Black Rock desert for the weekend. On the return, I looked at my odometer
for the last tank of gas we got just outside of Reno in Sparks; 344 miles
it said after climbing through the hills in Tahoe, running the engine at
~4000 in 3rd on the big hills in and out, and it took 16 gallons of gas...
Now 16 gallons usually leaves the odometer at about 280 here in California
driving on any type of road... The driving style was no different, in fact
we may have been driving faster than I normally do in the van. So that leaves
MTBE, the stuff that will only reduce mileage by 5% at most... Well, I
just saw my mileage go down by what, 19%. So I now use 23% more gas to get 10%
less emissions... I think someone in Sacramento needs to check their math in
the public reports they are releasing...

The second thing I noticed was my thermostat seems to be opening a bit
early. In the Tahoe basin, the needle was nearing the white block signalling
cold again... I have put about 20k miles on this thermostat in under a year;
is that the normal lifespan? Has my excessive driving worn the thing out? It
was a something-Behr which I did not get from the dealer, does anyone know
what manfucture VW used? TIA

dave