I got stopped at a gas station today (yes, a GAS station, there was no diesel available here). I stop by this Marathon most mornings, pick up an Arizona Arnold Palmer iced tea and whatever to start the morning. I get back into the TDI, start it up, belt up and am about to reverse out of the station, then I notice a guy in a 1998-2002 or so Corolla pulling up and he motions for me to roll down the window.
I comply and the first question out of his mouth is what kind of fuel mileage do I get. I reply with "About 45 MPG" and mention that I have gone 650 miles on a tank before (my A3's tank is smaller than an A4 or Passat's).
He was already fairly knowledgeable about TDIs, knew that the new commonrail 50-state cars are coming out soon and wanted to know if I was selling mine (we had exchanged what total miles each of our cars have... my TDI is at 260,000 now, his Corolla at 270k).
He gave me his number, but I told him the car had been good to me and it held a certain sentimental value (my dad's the original owner, it was the car I learned to drive a manual transmission on when the car was only a few months old... many more reasons).
I was stopped in the middle of an intersection by a pedestrian in Milan, MI yesterday over my car as well! A older man who worked for Ford a long time said he was going to buy a 2009 TDI when they come out. He went on a long rant about how Ford doesn't know what people want, how they used to produce diesel cars (I tried to tell him my dad owned a Tempo Diesel at one time, but he continued talking over me--still ranting)... The light had been green for some time and I took off as he finished ranting... There wasn't any traffic to worry about, as this was early afternoon in a small town which you can count the number of traffic lights on one hand...
Word is getting out!