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Automotive News & Views What Would It Take for YOU to buy a diesel car?
1503 messages, Last post on Nov 14, 2009 at 1:11 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: bpeebles (Jan 05, 2009 5:02 pm) True if you are a salesman or something this may matter, but for the average American driver, that .02 cents a mile advantage you have over 12,500 miles a year isn't anything to write home about. As for "designed to go 300,000 miles"....please, no disrespect intended, but that is simply not substantiated by any sound evidence. It is, as we say, an urban legend. And even if it WERE true--by god, let's say IT IS TRUE, a bare slim fractional number of American drivers take a car to that mileage. Why don't they? Various reasons, but one being that the rest of the car is not built to go 300,000 without falling to pieces or looking mighty shabby. I mean, I'm right with you about grounding the discussion back into the "real world", and yes, a Subaru will never achieve .05 cents a mile. The point is, does that even matter for most of us?
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Jan 05, 2009 6:38 pm) Here is my real world complaints about all the 4 banger gas cars I have seen and ridden in. They cannot keep up on the SoCA Interstate highways without down shifting and screaming up to over 4000 RPM. They are few and far between that can get 500 mile range on a tank of gas. Most of the V6 & V8 gas engines are not much better. If you compare the BMW X5 35d to the X5 V8 you will see that the diesel is more than 1/2 second faster 0-60 mph, and has 75 more ft lbs of torque at half the RPMs. The diesel will go at least 33% further on a gallon of fuel. And the TMV is $6000 less on the diesel X5. So what would be the downside to buying a BMW diesel? I got to get out and test drive them while the price of diesel is high.
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at $1.66/gallon, my Echo costs me $0.04/mile for gas. That's based on the 41.5 mpg lifetime average it has produced. And while I am only at 112K miles, it has yet to require a single repair. Some Echo owners have reported they are still chugging at mileages well in excess of 200K miles with no repairs to the engine. I would expect it to go 300K miles without major engine repairs, based on many gas Toyotas I have owned. If you include "purchase price, taxes, insurance, depreciation, etc.", I'm doing even better, as the Echo cost half the price of a Jetta diesel to buy new and is dirt cheap to insure. All of which is to say there's more than one way to skin a cat (ummm, is that how that old expression goes??!!). Now if they could get the Cooper Clubman a diesel that was as fun to drive as the gas model, made 60 mpg, and sold for $22K, I would probably jump on it. But what if the Fit were just as much fun to drive for $6K less, and the only difference was the fuel economy? Well, then the Fit would be my choice. I guess the bottom line is I am waiting for some truly frugal, inexpensive diesel choices to enter the market, while still driving better than a Prius. That and gas at $3+ per gallon again would pull diesel buyers into the market. Maybe. |
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Ford builds the Interceptor sedan concept from a couple years ago (but please make the glass taller - I'm sick and tired of these gunslit windows)  This would most likely use the EcoBoost V6 if produced, but if they add... - a 3.0-3.5 liter 60° V6 diesel, 225-250 hp, 375-400 lb-ft - an automated manual trans - AWD ...I might be talked out of trucks. Otherwise, I'll stick with my Cummins-powered Dodge Ram. kcram - Pickups/Wagons Host |
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Replying to: nippononly (Jan 05, 2009 7:32 pm) Don't bet the farm on my math skills though. 
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 05, 2009 7:21 pm)
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 05, 2009 7:21 pm) **** Well, that's exactly the problem with gasoline engines. To develop maximum HP, they need to scream, as maximum torque isn't produced until you're approaching red line. JUst the nature of the beast. Diesels, OTOH, have loads more torque so they can get away with lower RPMs and shift a lot less often. Torque is huge in passing times and roll-on acceleration as well. BTW, Fifth Gear(U.K. auto show) recently tested several cars and the closest they could get, even flogging the cars hard, was still 20% slower than the listed 0-60 times! They couldn't even get the Ariel Atom under 4 seconds, despite slamming the clutch hard and wringing the hell out of it. The Corvette, for instance, is designed to withstand 100 full throttle 0-60 launches before the engine and transmission break. Most cars are closer to half that many. Nobody sane drives like that except for auto testers and people doing drag racing. So 0-60 times are often twice as fast as listed in actual traffic. This is another advantage to torque over horsepower. Since the cars all don't GO 0-60 in under 10-15 seconds in actual traffic, smoothness, lack of shifting, and the feeling of how hard the engine pulls you along matter far more. Of course, I'm kind of preaching to the choir here. Heh. Modern diesels completely destroy gasoline powered designs of most vehicles other than the top-end cars - mostly extreme sport sedans and exotics and the like, which are kind moot in actual real life driving. (ie - Porsche is great, but you hit 65mph in 2nd or 3rd gear and then your fun is over)
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Replying to: plekto (Jan 05, 2009 9:35 pm) It would be nice to see more emphasis placed on torque instead of 0 to 60 in the car reviews.
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Replying to: nippononly (Jan 05, 2009 7:32 pm)
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