OK, so first fill up! I failed yesterday (one Sunocio pump, a school bus waiting and a guy taking apart his car at that one pump, so I lfet). Today I succeeded. But I nopticed:

a) I was surprised to see that Diesel is so much more expensive. Premium Diesel (*is it worth it? Like Shell Gold? Why? Why not?*) is $1.05 when regular gas is $0.78. That almost totally negates the fuel savings!

b) Diesel is, so far as I have seen, only sold in Canada in the FULL SERVICE lane. Yet more cost? And I cannot pay with a credit card at the pump. And there is only one diesel pump vs. 8 gas pumps.

I was not expecting quite so much of a difference. And is there any iPhone app, as far as anyone knows, that helps me find diesel stations? Right now I can print Esso, Sunoco, Shell and Petrocan stations, but that does not help much,since I then do not know which one is the closest.

Just wondering what all of you other diesel drivers think.

Premium diesel is not required and you wont notice any difference. 99% of the stations I see are self service so I suggest you only have to keep looking. As far as regular gas goes, if you drive a MB gas motor of any type, they all use premium so that price comparison does not apply. As to your credit card issues, again there are lots of stations out there that take both debit and credit cards. In my last 3 pickups and this diesel ML I have logged more than 700,000 kms in Canada and had no issues at all finding or paying for fuel

Hi

OK, well, no need for "Gold" then? Good.

Still, the diff between premium and diesel is considerable.

I only checked three stations one Shell, one Sunoco and one Esso, and all three had only one diesel pump, and it was only in the full service lane. Glad to hear that seems to be an exception then.

The last week or so has seen diesel and premium even out around here and should head lower soon. Up until this last price spike diesel had been consistently 10 cents a lt cheaper than premium and I expect that to be back to normal soon. You will also find different pump setups at different locations even with the same company. I have one Co-op station here that has diesel at every one of its 24 pumps

Here's an article that might shed some light on the pricing situation:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122660972377725619.html

Ouch. That is actually quite scary, if the US/Canada situation is similar.

Here's another scary article, about our North American prices:

http://www.wheels.ca/article/473699

As far as I am aware, the advantage of a diesel vs. gasoline engine is not the price per liter, but rather the mileage you can get out of a full tank

In the past, very true. However, right now the price of diesel in my area is about 50% more than gasoline; and that pretty much kills the mileage economy advantage.

Very true. Last night I filled up at $2.79/gal and the unleaded regular was $1.63. Not sure I'm saving any money with the diesel at this point. But I'm still glad I got it over the gas model!

Think about it this way, if you had bought the gas model, this would not be your first fill up.

True. And you'd not have the torque.

...i actually liked the ml320 cdi loaner i had for a couple of days, the mb dealers delivered my s class with scratches on it, but anyway, i managed to get over 1000kms out of a single tank man, since it was a loaner i drove it as hard as i could and it still managed amazing mileage, wayyyy better than my 5.7 Jeep, like 4 times better, in the long run you end up saving im sure

Like a fine wine, diesel fuel must be sipped.

Blech!