2012 Outback Diesel?
I was looking around for a threat about the 2012 model coming around. We should start seeing them around June of this year in the US if it follows last year's schedule.
In other parts of the world, Subaru offers a diesel version of the Outback. Think anything like this is in the works for the US? I'd love to have a diesel - the price difference is around 10% extra for fuel in this area of the country, but you get far better fuel economy (and no annoying spark plugs!)
Any big changes on the horizon for the 12's? I imagine the next big change will be their Tribeca line, as the others have recently had new generations of models released within the last 2 years.
In other parts of the world, Subaru offers a diesel version of the Outback. Think anything like this is in the works for the US? I'd love to have a diesel - the price difference is around 10% extra for fuel in this area of the country, but you get far better fuel economy (and no annoying spark plugs!)
Any big changes on the horizon for the 12's? I imagine the next big change will be their Tribeca line, as the others have recently had new generations of models released within the last 2 years.
Tagged:
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
So it won't happen until the next generation clean diesel, at least.
I don't get your statement: (and no annoying spark plugs!)
Today you don't have to do anything to your plugs for 100K. That doesn't seem annoying to me.
How often do you change or clean your plugs?
On the other hand, I have always found my diesel autos to be annoying because I have to wear gloves to fuel and have to watch out about stepping in a pool of diesel fuel that someone just spilled where I am filling up. Every tracked diesel fuel on your shoes to your floor mats. This was not a deal killer, just annoying things.
I for one can't think of any reason to have a diesel anything today,(other than in a tuck for pulling) because of the extra cost in purchase, repairs, and fuel.
Repairs: ie: You can replace a complete gas engine for the price of a head job on a diesel. Had a friend who had his Ford diesel truck motor rebuilt--$15K! just for a rebuild.
Diesel in a car used to be a real +. Today there is no benefit.
Sorry if it seems I'm stirring the pot. These are just my feeling with a long history of gas and diesel cars.
Why do you think a diesel motor in a Subaru would be a benefit to you and other buyers of Subarus (or any other cars)?
You could drive forever on one tank.
Around here diesel costs about 10-12% more, but you can get about 20% better efficiency.
It takes a long, long time to recover the extra up front costs, but you enjoy more range the whole life of the car.
-mike
Subaru Guru and Track Instructor
Given the relationship with Toyota, hedge their bets with Toyota doing hybrids and Subaru doing diesels.
This is putting all their eggs in one basket!
As for the spark plugs, I started a thread a few weeks ago about the upcoming 30k service on my Legacy, in which the owner's manual instructs you to replace the spark plugs every 30k miles. (2009, 2.5 engine)
The range is nice, yeah.
I know several people that have diesels, primarily the Volkswagen TDI, that have been pretty pleased with the cost of ownership and maintenance.
A hybrid sounds nice, but I don't really think it's worth it overall. While true, you do reduce your amount of gasoline consumed, you're also creating some hazardous waste (the battery will EVENTUALLY have to get disposed of, somewhere, which will probably have ecological impacts). Even plug-in hybrids have issues - you're now creating more of a demand for electrical power, which means electricity production will have to increase - which is generated by burning coal, etc. in the majority of the country.
So, yes, we're "saving" carbon emissions by not burning as much gasoline, but now what? We're creating harmful waste and potentially more carbon emissions (among other things, like sulfur) by burning MORE coal to generate electricity for our plug-in hybrids.
That's not the case for Li-ion or newer tech batteries, though.
-mike
Subaru Guru and Track Instructor
Given the relationship with Toyota, hedge their bets with Toyota doing hybrids and Subaru doing diesels.
This is putting all their eggs in one basket!
I love diesels myself but I understand they want to take advantage of the Toyota/Subaru connection and use their R&D to pump out some inexpensive CAFE killers so they can keep making STis!
-mike
Subaru Guru and Track Instructor
No so fast there - keep in mind the Aussie gallon is 4.546 litres or 1.2 US gallons so bring down the improvement to only 30%.
And although diesel is a more efficient than gasoline, it's still made from oil. As long as we depend on oil, we'll be dependent on foreign sources.
Not really, because each barrel of oil produces some gas and some diesel. They can't produce all diesel.
In fact demand would cause higher prices if diesel market share surged.
It's a delicate balance. Diesel already costs more than gas, the cost difference would go up if LOTS of new diesels showed up here at the same time.
...and that higher diesel price will also raise prices for almost everything we buy because at some point it's all transported on trucks and trains that use - what for it - diesel.
Just to show you how bad it can be, I handle logistics for my company. Trucking firms started adding fuel surcharges about 5 years ago when fuel started to spike. Today I'm paying around 5-7% surcharge on UPS/Fedex Ground and 22-25% on truck freght. That gets passed right along to the customer.
-mike
Subaru Guru and Track Instructor
I drive a Jeep with 200,000+ on it's gas engine right now. It burns no oil between 6k oil changes. I expect it to go at least 300K and then I can replace it for $2500.
If I had a diesel, even 200k more would not make up for the extra cost of the new engine. + the Trans for a diesel is about 2 to 3 times as much too.
I know many love diesels. So have at it. If it works for you great. I just can't justify it anymore. I have has several diesels when I could justify them. Then they were great.
-mike
Subaru Guru and Track Instructor
Let me just say that my dear wife has owned an '06 diesel Jetta for two years and she absolutely loves that car for her daily 60 mile round trip. She routinely scores low to mid 40's in the MPG contest for her mix of freeway and city stop-and-go driving, and easily juts into the low 50's for straight highway miles. So even with diesel's price premium, the savings is there.
The earlier comments about crude production creating relatively fixed percentages of diesel and gasoline is spot on. Further, my understanding is that the Europeans, due to their acceptance of diesel, actually produce an excess amount of gasoline they can't use, and export it here to the US market. I wonder if this practice effectively subsidizes the price of gasoline in the US? (I can see it working either way.)
Anyhow -- I'd love for Subaru to give us a choice here in the US. I'd buy a TDI Legacy wagon in a heartbeat if it were made available here.
I did not know that but googled it and wow - what a revelation!! According to the below link, gasoline was trading last week in Europe at $2.40 a gallon leaving buyers about $0.03 a gallon in potential profit after shipping to the East Coast.
Euro Exports of Gasoline
Link is to a pretty good "unofficial" Subaru website maintained my a salesman on the west coast of USA.
Not to nitpick, but ...
Joe Spitz is an employee of Carter Subaru. Also, cars101.com is not a Subaru dealer site; it's Joe's personal baby.
Wow, that guy is pretty crafty. I though Joe Spitz Subaru was a dealership!
http://www.cars101.com/subaru_sales.html#1
http://www.cars101.com/disclaimer.html