well, you would be surprised... not so may bio-diesel stations here in Croatia...
If they catch you running on heating oil, you have to pay according to how much fuel you had at the time left in your tank...
However, tons of natural-gas (ground gas) stations here... And the price is only half of the gasoline price...
Just for a refference, here are the fuel prices in Croatia (per liter):
Super 95 gasoline: $1.33
Eurosuper 95 gasoline: $1.37
Eurosuper 98 gasoline: $1.44
Premium 100 gasoline: $1.49
Diesel fuel:$1.23
Eurodiesel fuel: $1.26
Blue diesel fuel $0.68 **
Heating fuel: $0.76***
Natural gas fuel: $0.68
* "Euro" means low on sulfur
**(off-road diesel - street illegal, can be purchased with valid license for farm equipment, fishing boats, combines, etc)
***(can be purchased without restrictions, but it is street illegal)
Well, I see your temtation, but I still wouldn't go for it. I guess you know that the tracer will color the fuel filter making it possible to check if you have used illegal fuel long time after it's gone from the tank
We don't have the heating oil problem here though, as it's almost 90% kerosene.
it's easier to import cars *from* the US than to the US... american laws are ridiculous on how vehicles are imported... the vehicle must pass emissions laws of its manufactured year and must pass the american crash tests (which aren't really much different from EEC/ECE ones, but they need you to do so anyway)... then finally the lighting equipment must be modified or changed to match US regulations... this is why certain cars that were imported like skylines costs 3x over the original used car price in japan
while it maybe relatively easy to modify the body to be the same as the US Protege, the emissions equipment is another story... the 323F diesel either was euro 3 or euro 4 emissions (I'm not sure), but either way it will NEVER meet the US anal standards as they are too concerned with NOx and cold start emissions
I feel that we do threadjack this thread a lot, but this is just to intersting...
Thanks for the information, in case I ever get a US work visa such information is nice to know. The 323(F) diesels didn't come with DPF, meaning they will not be able to get registered in the US at all, I think the TD version (99-2001) is Euro 3 and the DITD version (2001-2003, the one with the MSP intercooler setup) is Euro 4, but I am also not sure.
I would think that 2006- commonrail cars with factory DPF would be able to get licenced in the US. At least I would think that the Mercedes E- or S-class with AdBlue would pass inspection. The only thing special about Europpean lights compared to US ones is that ours is aspherical, but so is the headlights on some US cars (like my MSP) so I guess they allow it. The seatbelts in my MSP is also E-marked, so I guess E-marked seatbelts is also fair game. Collision test is maybe more of an issue, because if I have understood it correctly we fous more on stability, active systems and pedestrian safety where US is more about safety in case of an accident.
Anyways, cars in the US and here in Europe is getting more and more similar, so I would think it's easier now than 10 years ago, and certainly easier than importing cars from Japan, (also hard to do in Norway) but please correct me if I'm wrong.
...
And to top it all off, here it goes: (boom07)
Jaguar, Bentley, Porche, Lambo... all have or plan to have a diesel engine as an option...
Porche already has one, and you shouldn't forget that Audi has plans making a diesel R8.