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Forest River, ND Car Consumer Discussions

Re: 2009 Subary Forester - Real World fuel mileage [phil53]

by xwesx on Wed Aug 06 16:29:56 PDT 2008

The cargo carrier is going to hit it rather hard. With just my soft carrier on my '96 Outback, I would lose a couple MPG. With a cargo carrier on my '08 Outback (the Subaru-branded Yakima Load Warrior) and loaded, I lost 6-8 MPG (was getting 28-30 without the carrier, and ran about 22 MPG with it) consistently. It was brutal considering the distance traveled with it on top (about 4000 miles on a 5500 mile trip). This summer, I drove my minivan on a trip to the Kasilof river (about 500 miles from home). I had the same cargo carrier on top. I got between 17 and 22 MPG depending on whether I ran 70(+) or kept it at 60. I get that much around town (average 20.5 MPG) and managed 25.5 out of it (3.8L V6 in a '98 Caravan AWD) on a recent 400-mile round trip to Tok. At $4.50 a gallon, that was an expensive way to carry a little extra cargo. :cry:

Re: Need advice on Conversion Vans [buzzlady1]

by gagrice on Sat May 20 17:42:39 PDT 2006

If you plan to put a lot of miles on your conversion van, I would recommend getting one built on the Dodge (Mercedes) Sprinter chassis. Airstream, Forest River, Winnebago, and several others. We have one and it gets consistently over 22 MPG on diesel. It has plenty of power and is rated for a 5000 lb. trailer. You can also get service from any 5 star Dodge or Chrysler dealer. You will be lucky to get 10 MPG with a Chevy or Ford conversion van. We love our Forest River MB Cruiser. Check them out. Sprinter conversions

Re: Buying American [fintail]

by gagrice on Sat Jun 14 11:14:27 PDT 2008

Here is a 2005 just like mine listed for $54,995 with 8000 miles. So I probably could have kept it for another year and not lost any money. I looked at the Ford based Class C & B with V10. The guy was real proud that they would get 8-9 MPG. The ones built by Winnebago on the Sprinter chassis are only getting about 18 MPG. They do have a lot more room and a slide out or two. They are pushing $100k new. At least they are all assembled in the USA and the RV portion is all American made. I did buy mine in Colorado from a dealer in December. He was trying to get rid of inventory. The least I could get the same RV in San Diego was almost $10k more and would have to pay sales tax of 8.25%. So I saved the $10 grand and $5600 in sales tax by flying to Colorado and licensing it to my Alaska residence. I hear from the guy that bought it now and then. He and his 3 daughters are burning up the road. Took it all around the USA before his oldest left for college. http://www.rvtraderonline.com/find/listing/2005-FOREST-RIVER-MB-CRUISER-220-8601- 9343

Re: Angles of approach/departure [ateixeira]

by blitzkrieg79 on Wed May 14 10:25:26 PDT 2008

I looked these up for the AWD/4WD thread, but they are relevant since we seem to be comparing everything under the sun: Angle of approach: Forester 24.8 degrees, Outlander 21 degrees Angle of departure: Forester 24.8 degrees, Outlander 18 degrees The concern here would be the Outlander's angle of departure. You may get the front bumper past an obstacle, but it might get hung up on the rear bumper. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I would expect the 2009 Forester to be a better engineered car simply because it's a 3 years younger design than the Outlander which came out in Japan in 2006. If Subaru wouldn't balance the car to the newest standards then they would have a big problem. I also expect the 2012/2013 Outlander to be a better balanced car than 2009 Forester, thats the nature of business. As far as Approach/Departure angles are concerned, it's meaningless. Those are not real offroaders. 24.8 degree approach/departure angle is pretty much below average for an offroader anyway, cars such as Mitsubishi Montero, Jeep Wrangler, or Land Rover LR3 have approach angles of 35-40 degrees, where Hummer H1 has over 60 degrees. Outlander and Forester are good to drive by some small stream (not too deep river), drive on the beach, or play around in some mud, but I would never dare to go rock climbing or drive into some real steep angles with either two. Reality is that Forester and Outlander are two rather evenly matched cars and it all comes down to brand perception, aesthetic/ergonomic preferences, and price.

Tar-sands

by chadx on Fri Apr 04 13:28:04 PDT 2008

The below is from the press release from an org trying to stop the development of tar-sands in Canada. To expand on two items they touch on briefly, the dam that was created to hold back the toxic waste if of real concern. Any wastes that leak from these holding areas, or a dam failure, would result in entire fish stocks being wiped out since it impacts some major salmon spawning rivers. Also the impacts to ground water. The second item of interest is the amount of natural gas and water used to extract the oil. Natural gas is alreay in short supply and using it to extract another type of energy rather than using the natural gas itself as energy is an issue. As is the amount of water used in this process. Article below: ------------ Alberta’s Tar Sands: One of the Most Destructive Projects on Earth One of the Most Destructive Projects on Earth Located beneath 4.3 million hectares of boreal forest, an area the size of Florida, the tar sands are the dirtiest source of oil in the world. Few Canadians know what is happening in northern Alberta. While many may know about Alberta’s immense oil reserves in the tar sands (2nd only to Saudi Arabia) few know the environmental and social devastation that is taking place.The tar sands could destroy over 149,000 square kilometres or Boreal forest an area the size of Florida. By 2020 they are expected to emit more than 141 million tonnes of greenhouse gases – more than double that currently produced by all the cars and trucks in Canada. Alberta is now home to the world’s largest dam and it is built to hold the toxic waste from just one Tar Sands operation.The tar sands of Alberta are now the world’s largest industrial operation. Because of their sheer scale, all Canadians have become hostage to their development. Instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Canada is quickly increasing them and fully half of that emissions growth is projected to come from the Tar Sands. This is just beginning. The Alberta government has already given approvals that will double the size of existing operations, and has been talking with the US government to grow the Tar Sands five-fold in a “short time span” looking to move from 1 million barrels of oil per day to over 5 million The Tar Sands are now the biggest capital project anywhere on Earth and the biggest energy undertaking anywhere.With the Tar Sands, Canada has become the world’s dirty energy superpower. A few quick facts: • The Tar Sands can single handedly prevent Canada from meeting it’s international obligations under the Kyoto protocol. By 2020 the tar sands are expected to release over 141 megatonnes of GHG – twice that produced by all the cars and trucks in Canada. • An area the size of the state of Florida (149,000 km2) can be leased to oil sands development in the future. • It takes 3-5 barrels of fresh water to get a single barrel of oil from the tar sands. 350 million cubic metres is the volume of water currently allocated to the tar sands, the equivalent to the water required by a city of two million people. • Cumulatively, the environmental impact of the tar sands has made Alberta the industrial air pollution capital of Canada, with one billion kilograms of emissions in 2003. • 600 million cubic feet of Natural gas is used every day – that’s enough to heat more than three million Canadian homes. • First Nation communities downstream of tar sands operation have been experiencing unprecedented rates of bile and colon cancer, lupus and other diseased that they believe are attributable to tar sands. • 70% of the crude oil being extracted from the tar sands is exported directly to the United States mostly for use in transportation.

Re: Well, what about this???? [sirlena]

by gagrice on Sun Feb 24 21:09:56 PST 2008

Here are some facts for those that might be blinded by your Ethanol industry propaganda. Environmental Defense report soft on ethanol problems November 4, 2007 in education, environment, health, science, sustainability Tags: corn ethanol, ethanol, NRC, problems with ethanol fuel, UN, water quality, water use The Environmental Defense organization released a report, discussed on its web pages and in a related web article written by one of the report’s co-authors, about the potential negative effects of ethanol production on the environment. The report, a downloadable PDF, Potential Impacts of Biofuels Expansion on Natural Resources [PDF], discusses the damage that ethanol production could do to the Ogallala Aquifer, the center of the famous 1930’s Dust bowl and “one of the world’s largest aquifers and an important water source for the eight Great Plains states it lies beneath: Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming.” The report, as summarized on the Environmental Defense website, warned of the following: ” Making ethanol requires substantial resources. For example, between three and six gallons of water are needed to produce one gallon of ethanol. Our study shows how plans to expand the production of ethanol, primarily with corn-based feedstock, will further strain the region’s resources. Topping the list of potential issues are: * increased use of water in places where supplies are already dwindling, * retired croplands reverting to working lands, and * the loss of important grasslands to crop production.” However, this warning is mild compared to more recent conclusions and studies, including one study from the National Research Council and one from the United Nations,. I have discussed these reports before. Water shortages are ONE consequence of ethanol production, and the ED is correct to point this out. However, the conversion of corn to ethanol carries with it a much higher environmental burden and actual cost: the increased runoff of fertilizer alone threatens rivers, streams and other bodies of water, including the Gulf of Mexico. This harmful process is also heavily subsidized by Federal and State tax dollars in the US. Until we can implement biomass to ethanol conversion commercially, the UN has called for a halt to biofuel use. The current methods compete too much with food and cause too much environmental damage. Jane Goodall has stated that biofuels, while helpful in principle, damage the rain forests if made without proper foresight and methods. I agree with the UN and with Jane Goodall. We also need to explore and solve apparent health issues from ethanol-based fuel, as found by sampling the air quality of Brazil, where many cars have been running on 100% ethanol for decades. The health issues are directly related to high amounts of ozone and formaldehyde in Brazilian air- these are substances associated with serious respiratory problems and, in the case of formaldehyde, with causing cancer in lab mice. It seems to me that we could eliminate the harmful emissions with proper catalytic converter design or other adjustments to the combustion engineering of cars, but (a) I’m just speculating and (b) somebody has to work on it. http://greenchemistry.wordpress.com/2007/11/04/edf-report-soft-on-ethanol-proble- ms/