For as long as I've known, I've always been into cars. From the earliest a memories of my little white '94 Porsche 911 Micromachine to owning a Mercedes-Benz W123 300D and W203 C55 AMG, what car I get next is always a question.

With just the paragraph below, I might have made my decision especially in lieu of how unworthy and unreliable my BMW E39 5.28iT (wagon) had been.

Yet while the E.P.A. rules tend to overstate hybrid mileage, they vastly underestimate diesels’ real-world economy. In my testing, the TDI effortlessly delivered 50 to 53 m.p.g. even as I cruised at 65 to 70 miles per hour and passed dawdlers at will. And in an admittedly Prius-like run, holding at a resolute 55 m.p.h., the TDI sipped at a wallet-friendly 60 m.p.g.

Then again, if anyone can actually provide me reliability records and lifetime performance, I'd be sold TODAY! I want the new VW Golf SportsWagen but maybe might just settle for the hatchback. Last I saw, VW wanted around $33k for a fully loaded TDI SportWagen.

Also just announced and obtained by VWVortex, the full lineup changes for Model Year 2016 (MY2016) which highlights the inclusion of MIB2 (audio / nav system upgrade) and a full set of driving safety features such as lane departure assist, adaptive cruise control and park assist to name a few. Exciting stuff for 2016 models which can be expected to debut around September in a showroom near you.

Heading down to Kurt's house early morning, I left the crashpad in Buckhead and began my 50 minute drive south on 85 to Grantville. Picking up some breakfast bagels at Panera along with some Honey Walnut Cream Cheese hit the spot before we got underneath the car. An enthusiast on the popular bimmerforums website by the name of MLue1 wrote a great step by step procedure which helped in the process of changing the part out. Some said that the swap took only 20-30 minutes, and I was proud that we finished in under an hour. The actual exchange of the part was 10 minutes but the lifting of the car, removal of the wheels...just overall setup was what took the longest. Taking a look at the picture, the new one is on the left compressed and if you look closely at the "bag" on the right side, you'll see the age; the car was manufactured in 01/99. You do the math. Can you believe that a local shop here in Atlanta wanted to charge over $600 in labor? I bought the Left (part number 37121095081) and Right (part number 37121095082) Sport Air Springs using realoem.com to find the part number and eeuroparts where I was able to place a phone order in two minutes! The price was okay at $180 a side but from what I've heard, some BMW Dealerships will actually give you a better price. Next time, I'll be sure to double check. There's always the shocks next!

Hanging out for a few minutes, we decided to go on that run...

Running in Grantville (in southern Atlanta) proved to be just a little too hot for me. After working on the wagon with Kurt, yes, more or less he did most of the "dirty" work but I did about 40% or so, I decided that I wanted to see what hills he kept on talking about around his neighborhood. Off we went. Starting off at a good pace, the heat just really began to slow me down. The smell of the horses near by, the trees surrounding the area, I was definitely out of my element. I was running in heat that was roughly 25 degrees hotter than the usual San Diego weather! Did I mention that the temp was rated at a 105F index!? Smuldering... so instead, I resulted to just doing a couple of long walks sprinkling them with some really fast sprints. I even did a ridiculous leg getting my heart rate to the highest I've ever seen! Check out the details below. I'll trust Kurt on the hills next time, but I can't wait to really get back into "training" mode.

VW's TDI Golf SportWagen Wagon

Cars and Running...in Atlanta