So that is $1.50 Australian dollars per liter?
-ouch!


i remember when i first started driving in the late 60s gas was 30-40 cents a gallon

What is the driving habits over there?

Do people have far to travel like in the U.S. to get to work or is it more like Europe that people don't have to drive much?

it's nothing to drive for an hour or even two to get to work. Outside of Sydney and Melbourne there is virtually no such thing as mass public transit for people. Our railways are mostly for moving freight, not people.

You *HAVE* to have a car to function properly in Australian society, unless you are lucky (and rich) enough to live within the CBD of a city. Our cities aren't like the USA's -- they are low rise and sprawl out for many many kilometres.

So you guys drive high mile per gallon cars and have gotten used to a large portion of your paychecks going to the gas companies?

A lot of us used to drive high MPG cars in the past, but you will find there are more imported Japanese 4 cyclinder cars than anything else on our roads and this has been true for at least a decade, I personally drive a 1.3 litre Toyota Yaris and find it to have plenty of power for the driving I undertake.

Most of the people who use Ute's and flat-tray vehicles have dual fuel systems installed (LP gas with a fallback to petrol), so really, only petrol heads punish themselves with gas guzzling V8's and big sixes.

I used to see the Yaris on the road here but haven't seen one in a long while.

If my memory serves me right I believe that is a 3 cylinder engine?

No, it's a 4 cylinder, fuel injected. Replaced Corolla as Toyota's entry level car. They do market they "sports" variants as performfing as though they had a 1.5 litre engine, but they don't still the same 1.3 engine with maybe 100 - 150 ml more capacity vs the standard model. Ours is just a standard YR Yaris, 3 speed auto.

It has been a great car to own actually, very trouble free, easy to drive in town or on the highway, cheap to purchase, larger than the 1991 Corolla it replaced despite supposedly being a class under it, far better kitted out and its not some cheap and nasty Korean pile of junk like Hyundai or Kia despite being priced just like them. Built in Japan, assembled in Australia.

Hey, i have one of those "nasty Kias"

i bought it brand new in '02 for $5988 (the "ad car" at the "ad price" and it has over 200,000 miles on it
with no issues. over 30 miles per gallon.

The only issue with the cars is that Kia saves money on the car body; the metal is easy to dent

You have no idea just how much money they like to save on the body. I can still remember the first 4WD they brought into Australia. Open the rear door and you could see the car was held together with just a few spot welds (the sort you'd make in a High School metal working class with a calipers style portable spot welder), and they didn't even bother to fold over the metal edges or anything. You could see the inside of the panels. God help you in an accident, that thing would crumple like a wet tissue.

No, my Yaris will be motoring on long after the KIA's made at the same time as it are returning to Korea as scrap metal.

My Kia already has 1/2 million km


i'd say i got my $6,000 worth a couple of years ago
- and it has survived a rear end collision

The first Kias that came into the USA (pre Y2K) were pretty junky. The Rio was originally the Ford Aspen build by Kia and it was 'the car' to get from Kia back in '02.

What sort of gas mileage do you get?
-- what would be the conversion for 30 miles per gallon into litres?