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What Would It Take for YOU to buy a diesel car?
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Passenger car diesels don't like very high revs all the day long. These are not Peterbilt trucks with massive engine blocks. Many an old diesel goes down in the dirt because of that.
Indeed that is true !!! But really: So What? My current 03 (now old) Jetta TDI (Germ engine, US, Canadian, Mexico, Argentina and assembled in Mexico) can literally run all day and all night at (app) LESS than 2,900 RPMS @ app 100 mph, and clock 48 mpg, ( rounding down 585 miles/12.1 gals). Oil consumption is 1/4 to 1/2 quart per 20,000 miles (or so I have heard )
I would also agree with you that I am a tad frustrated they still build IN notable and CONSISTENT FLAWS !!!! :lemon:
Contrast that with Europe; where the DC PVF is greater than 50% with yearly sales @ more like 70% diesel.
Of course the HUGE complexity of say this...Roadshow: Cost to replace on-and-off Prius headlights can run $950 — or nothing
By Gary Richards
Mercury News
link title
is hushed/downplayed, etc., !!!
I still make it a habit for any vehicle (diesel or otherwise) to talk to the mechanics familiar with its maintenance and repair side. Seems being the "guinea pig" can be an EXPENSIVE proposition.
1750 rpm = 68 mph
2000 rpm = 78 mph
2250 rpm = 87 mph
(If I fancied revving from there it would go to:
2500 rpm = 97 mph
3000 rpm = 117 mph
4000 rpm = 155.34 mph
But then I would have a full wolf pack with all lights and dragnets behind me to take my license out. Better not to try.)
Yesterday I came back home after driving with my wife 1,000 miles to and fro. In the end, highway average speed was 73 mph as a result to try cruising at 86 mph (2,200 rpm), with occasional peaks up to 100 mph to rock the engine. All in cold wether, ranging from -3ºC to 6ºC. Averaged consume (tank filled twice) was 33.5 miles per gallon.
Regards,
Jose
The US market version Jetta TDI got one less gear (5 speed manual vs 6 speed manual) so the TDI engine in the 5 speed SCREAMED as compared to purred with a 6 speed.
I understand the 2009 TDI got corrected and now has the 6 speed manual (6 spd DSG also).
Indeed I do not expect most non diesel owners to really understand the max torque concept: yours @ 1750-2250 rpms, VW being @ 1750 rpms. 2500 or so RPMS seems to be the SWEET SPOT for longevity for the TURBO. RPMS much over that is sort of lost.
As you increase speed, the HP you need increases exponentially, not linearly.
That, as rucking1 has said, was reporting from reality.
1750 rpm = 68 mph
2000 rpm = 78 mph
2250 rpm = 87 mph
2500 rpm = 97 mph
3000 rpm = 117 mph
4000 rpm = 155.34 mph
Those were products of multiplying rpm by respective gear multiplication factors. Yet most of them have been assessed by myself (only up to 3000 rpm :mad: ). In that, I merrily acknowledge my wife collaboration as a co-pilot; she wrote down the figures I simultaneously read on the speedometer and the 'cuentarrevoluciones' of my 335d. I can be very obsessed when checking the performance of my cars.
As you increase speed, the HP you need increases exponentially, not lineally.
I may be wrong, but I believe that when increasing speed the fuel burned to get the necessary HP and the HP itself is what increases not lineally. I was speaking of revs., not of HP or fuel necessary to obtain the speed/revs.
Regards,
Jose
kcram - Pickups Host
84' Ford F250HD < Diesel !
87' Ford Escort < Diesel !
Lots of folks get on their high horses about so called "gas sucking" SUV's. This of course would be a difficult case to make if those same diesel twin turbo suv's got 30-35 mpg !!! Indeed loads of folks with the (one of the best "small compact economy car") Civic do NOT get 35 mpg !!!
Modern diesel engines such as the new Mercedes and VW will need low sulfur diesel. Otherwise it will clog up the emissions very quickly.
Diesel engines are much more adaptable to a variety of fuels and alternative fuels, than gasoline engines.
1. continue to EXPORT D2, while charging the RUG to PUG users .50 to $1.00 per gal to do so.
2. continue to import 60% foreign barrels of oil to meet an artifically created a min of 23% spike in RUG to PUG.
2. artificially limit passenger diesel D2 to less than 1% when the natural product mix from a barrel of oil is (EIA.GOV data) 46% RUG to PUG and D2 23.4. %
4.. The problem is structurally not solvable, (cut foreign importation of barrels of oil) if we continue down the path we have chosen.
The auto manufactors could make a 3-4 cylinder for cars that get 45mph to put in cars but they dont what to that other 10% can be put through a hepper filter just like on one of the Mercades cross overs. They are in the back pockets of the oil company. Just like Ford with the tire problem, they new the tires had a problem and did nothing about it untill they got caught.
Let's face it---American do not, nor have they ever, liked small cheap diesel cars. They barely tolerate diesel Benzes.
Detroit doesn't build them because no one will buy them. That's been proven time and time again, at least to me. They are too expensive to build (not just the engines but meeting the emissions regs) and the market is too small to justify the capital costs.
My opinion is that even if gas hit $10 a gallon, you will not get 99.5% of American car buyers into a diesel Daewoo with cardboard door panels and cloth seats, even if it got 75 mpg. You would get a few more into diesel Passats, but it would be a fractional market share gain, IMO.
I have read in passing VW will build a plant in Tenn which will build diesels models for the world wide markets including the "US " market.
Given the recent bru ha ha, the big three and UAW did NOT testify in securing the permanent taxpayer bail out monies, what will take the place of pick up trucks and suv's !!! So that should be a fairly obvious signal they will continue to build them. Making them in turbo diesel to increase the mpg and torque, etc. is probably far too logical a leap.
Every year ford send out a flyer on ideas and every year putting diesel in cars is always #1 but it never happens.
Just like putting the alison trans. in the super duty. The motor is turned down so not to brake trans. Putting the allison 6speed and put a splitter so you can increase mpg would be the best thing. People around here do that after the warrenty runs out and put the chip in it
The 2003 VW Jetta TDI can easily do that and still deliver 48 mpg. On a recent 3 state and 45 min CN border stop and go trip (965 miles one way) I ran a steady 75 mph with bursts to 80 mph and it returned 59 mpg. So in comparison to a Jetta gasser which would struggle to get 29 mpg, the diesel for logical purposes is an absolute no brainer. It is such a no brainer than when even close friends ask me what I get in a diesel, I don't even say anymore. If they press, I just say well it could be better. :shades:
Americans don't like diesel cars and won't buy them.
That's why the Big Three will not built them for domestic market, at least not the domestic market *as it is now configured*.
If one does not agree that the government *punish* people until they do buy diesels, then you have to let the market dictate what is built by what is bought.
You could not currently give away at 1/2 price a $35000 Chevrolet diesel sedan.
You could not get an American driver into a Peugeot turbo diesel hatchback or a VW Rabbit diesel.
You CAN (and have) gotten them into diesel pickups for hauling gravel, etc.
So for example while we get a pretty good 38-42 mph on a(gasser) Honda Civic for a commute, I would buy a turbo diesel Civc that got 56 mpg !!! The unacknowledged problem is it is simply not available on the US market.
Diesel passenger cars have never had more than 6% of the market.
Why would an automaker pour hundreds of millions into such a niche market?
To develop it? Into what? A market for cars that burn very expensive fuel? A market for an unspecified future time when fuel costs might (or might not) double or triple in price?
It's not like with other emerging markets, like computers or iPods, when there was nothing like it one could buy in the early days----right now you can buy gasoline cars that get outstanding gas mileage.
Diesel passenger CARS are currently less than 1% of the passenger vehicle fleet. I read that 92.5% of the diesel passenger vehicle fleet (ie light trucks) are diesels. So the over all % diesel is @ 2%, down from less than 3%.
Besides, back then diesel engines made sense in a luxury car like an old 300---you could get small car mileage out of a large car. Remember this was an era when a) most large 4-door cars got 15 mpg and b) when diesel fuel cost less than regular gasoline.
Neither of those market forces is now operative.
Running a 70s Mercedes diesel today only makes sense in that you can buy them cheap and so you don't have car payments, and that they can still deliver reliable day to day transportation---and they look nice even now. But if the engine blows up you can throw the car away or spend more than the entire value of the automobile to fix it....not so smart.
I think if you jumped on those old Benz owners and hit them up with truth serum and examined their service and repair records, you'd see that these are no cheaper to run than any other used car.
Ford has a diesel motor in Europe that get I think 50 plus mpg Yes old motors nocked like hell.But this new motor is quiet . There are more then 2 dozen tankers off the gulf coast because there is a glutten of oil at the refinerese. If you noticed when the price of gas was way up the price of motor oil at you're local auto zone and other places only went up a few pennies HMMM?? Also a diesel motor will last 2-3 hundred miles gas motor will last only 150. People with vehicles that better then that never drove over 45mph
The Ford Ranger diesels are ancient history, and anyway, they weren't American engines. Perkins and Mitsubishi, from the 1980s.
A compact diesel pickup isn't a bad idea actually.
I beg to differ. Apart from the anti-car, AKA Prius, there isn't a gas-powered car on the market that will average better than 40 mpg. We shouldn't judge all diesels by the unimpressive VW model - if automakers tried just a little to excel in diesel offerings, they could blow away all gas-powered cars except hybrids on the fuel economy front, and for about the same price premium as a hybrid car.
But they haven't, and with the Japanese fading back out of the diesel picture in recent months they probably won't, given that the consumer's first thought is going to be for the current price of diesel when they go to buy the car. As it has been for much of the year, diesel is still WELL above regular unleaded in price in my area.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Let's face it---American do not, nor have they ever, liked small cheap diesel cars. They barely tolerate diesel Benzes.
****
The real problem is that when you mix capitalism, government, and commodities, you don't get the most efficient outcome. You get the most profitable for the least amount of money spent. And the public basically has to buy what you make, thanks to the government only allowing certain cars into the U.S.
It's a captive market.
In such situations, free market idealism and theory goes right into the dumpster along with idiocy like the Chicago school of economic theory and supply and demand. Because government and greed always makes it all work very differently than in a classroom or in a research paper. Usually to the public's detriment as we've seen with this bailout.
We need cars that will help us get out of this mess. The problem is that these same cars are the least likely to be made, because the auto makers aren't in the business of building cheap, reliable, and affordable cars.(I'm talking 100mpg, hardly ever breaks, and under $10K). They are in the business of making their shareholders wealthy and keeping their stock prices high.
I think the solution will either come from new players in the industry who have a different agenda, or from companies that pretty much only do diesel and other technologies. (VW and a few others, for instance) The D3? Don't bother. Just move on and look elsewhere.
The only thing I am concerned is that some dumm @$$ is going to use a 5th wheel camper behind it when they should have been using a f-350 see to many trucks that way. They are over there weight limit and DOT cops only pulls over company trucks not the mom and pop who should not be pulling the item behind them.
Get this!! seen a guy pulling a pontuine party boat with a minni van not made for that little white sticker on drivers door tells you what you're total weight is that includes the people and materials you are carrying not just what you are towing
Really? Not Mazda?
So in that sense, the Big 4 have and continue to misread and manipulate operative market forces. I think it is intimitating at whatever levels to the big four that diesel SUV's (not theirs) are capable right now of getting the forward looking 2012 35 mpg literally YESTERDAY. They literally spend the moneys on "useless" additional accessories, sheet metal changes, and redesign after poor initial design rather than confront head on the higher mileage issues. They suffer from unreliability from making things too complicated, so what do they propose to do? Make it even MORE complicated, ie, hybrids, untried battery packs, etc.
Indeed I am surprised the circular argument you present is one that you don't see! I also think you are marginally acknowleding the points !!
So for example, if I buy a gasser American car, even though I want say a turbo diesel model American car, it is an absolute no brainer to interpret my actions as: see, the American public (1 each- me) does NOT want a diesel, therefore that is why we don't make diesels. So if I REALLY want an American diesel, the best thing to do is NOT to buy American, till they actually have a turbo diesel model. The problem of course has been the big four volume/profit wise have been so out of touch with the American buying public and for a very long time, and it SHOWS !!!! (in my case out of touch for a min of 39 years)
Of course they REALLY know the answer (in the bowls of the organization), which is why they have banned diesel cars Euro and Asian, etc. Of course it takes a 100 M plant, VW Tennessee USA, i.e., when the VW builds diesel models on our sources to bring it to the fore.
Of course they REALLY know the answers (in the bowls of the organization). One spin off is the logistical system is they have banned diesel cars Euro and Asian, etc. Of course it probably takes a $ 100 M plant, VW Tennessee USA, i.e., when VW will build diesel models on our shores to bring turbo diesel cars to the fore.
On the other hand, they have (for literally decades) and probably will continue to charge the American public a 5,000 dollar mid sized truck premium on top of already 15,000 dollar profit for a heavy duty turbo diesel
My point about gas cars being the equivalent of diesel cars takes into account the unfortunate reality that in my part of California, diesel fuel is going to cost you .60 cents more a gallon than regular gas.
Buy a diesel, pay a penalty.
So you can forget about diesels becoming popular in the northern half of California in the year 2009 unless something changes radically in the oil market.
As for hybrids, you are correct again that they are as complex and expensive as diesels to build, if not indeed more so---but Toyota pulled off a great PR coup, even if they didn't make much money on each hybrid. They look like visionaries, "greens", technical leaders, and an automaker that can make a car that is dead reliable.
Try pinning those labels on the Big 3 with any credibility. Not going to happen.
It also won't happen by introducing diesel cars, as they are not perceived by the American public as a new technology or a mainstream solution.
Americans have "embraced" hybrids but I suspect they will just "sniff around" new diesel cars, like they have in the past.
Secondly, your clarifications/explanations, when you point to the objective examples makes sense, or has come to the fore. To the extent that it represents a "majority" opinion indicates again the LACK of seriousness about the foreign oil dependency issue. So if they were "serious" they would for example, make diesel .60 cents CHEAPER than RUG. Hopefully the reasoning would be obvious. The reasoning/s to the logistics system/s is SO obvious and is actually part of the reasoning to make it .60 cents MORE !!!! :lemon:
As an aside, as you probably know, the American public is already charged an extra .50 cents to 1 per gal on RUG to PUG (tax credits, depreciation, special dispensations, etc.) to EXPORT US made D2 for the world wide markets !!!???? YUP you can tell we are serious :P :P about cutting foreign oil importation.
The operative term for another example given diesels 20-40% fuel use efficiency over RUG to PUG might be: Why use less, when you can use more, and talk about using less. Its the Hollywood, LA LA land way !!!