Bozeman Mt

Today was all about the car. We have really been enjoying the VW TDI Sportwagen for this trip.  It seems the ideal car for a mountain road trip.  The diesel provides terrific torque for climbing and great fuel economy.  Before leaving we put high performance Bridgestone tires on and the car now takes the mountain curves like it's on railroad tracks. We registered 110 on the GPS while passing a house and log truck on a two lane road coming down to Bozeman.  I think the advertised speed of 130 is probably within reach.

Yesterday when we arrived in Bozeman, we were surprised to find a detailing station outside our hotel.  So while Carol did the laundry from a week at Glacier, I removed the mud from the road construction and put a shine to the glass and sheet metal.  The hotel even provided tire black!

After the clean up, I headed to a local Pizzeria and the car began acting up.  It nearly stalled out each time I started up from a stop light.  Last night was spent looking for a VW Dealer and researching fuel supply issues with this car.  I found some really scary stuff about defective high pressure fuel pumps on these cars.  Luckily one of the 5 VW dealers in Montana is in Bozeman.  So with limited sleep I headed off this morning. The car was already driving much better.  The dealer checked the fuel filters and measured the low pressure supply line at several points.  They also drove the car quite a bit.  Their opinion was that the car was OK but that I might have had some bad fuel that was slowly passing through.  I decided to hang around town for the day driving in stop and go traffic a lot. By the end of the day she was pretty much back to normal and tomorrow we head out to Chico Hot Springs Resort Spa for one day and then back to camping in Yellowstone.

So diesel cars have come a long way since the 80's, but the new clean diesels do need good clean fuel.  Wish us luck as we head into VW dealer free country for the next several weeks.