Thread: Diesel cars

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After our recent US roadtrip i couldn't help noticing the lack of diesel cars in the US ???
What with your gas prices rising i would of thought the diesel would of gained popularity ???
In England i have a 2003 Mercedes 220CDI estate, its an electronically injected diesel and is not only very quiet but returns 51mpg at 80mph, My friend has a 2011 Honda Accord diesel and he gets an astonishing 70mpg.

So do americans just not like diesel ???

to me it would be the difficulty in finding places that sell diesel and as soon as it did become popular the price would double ...

Really, all the filling stations i went to had diesel ???

Diesel is about the same here as gas....The farmers around here never shut off there P/Us that run diesel.

Diesels are accepted more outside the US. There was a bad rap regarding diesel in the old days because (1) the mechanical-timed injection got out of adjustment so the vehicle was smoky and stank and (2) you had to go to dirty truck stops to buy diesel. The yuppies didnt like either so nobody wanted diesels. Now, the fuel is cleaner, injection is electronic, there are soot traps and the fuel is sold at more acceptable locations. Of course, now the yupsters want a solar car that runs on their own farts when it is cloudy out.....we dont want to buy foreign oil but we dont want to use our oil.....instead we want to raise taxes and subdize marginal technology....go figure.

There are damned few passenger car diesels in the US though a buddy has three in his family - a VW, an Audi and his DD a Dodge pick up. The pick up versions have gotten so complicated to meet the EPA edicts on emissions that there are some reliability concerns - and the primary reason why I have a 6.8L V10 gas guzzler.

We've rent diesels when we travel in the UK. The last had a turbo - 40 plus mpg and ran like a demon.

On a recent trip the Europe I noticed that almost every car on the road seemed to be a diesel and that many are the same models that we get over here but for which diesels are not available. I drive a Golf turbo diesel as my DD and love it - great mileage and adequate performance. There is no difficulty finding diesel at the pumps here in Canada and I also had no problems on a couple of trips I have taken to Florida.
I think there are two problems. First, the diesel engine option is usually quite expensive and many people are doubtful they will recover the extra cost through fuel savings. Second, we have much more restrictive emission requirements than you have across the pond, usually fueled by California law. VW had to shut down production and sales of their diesel cars to North America in 2009 while they developed the new "Clean Diesel" to meet those restrictions. I believe most other manufacturers are unwilling to make the investment in developing such "clean" technology without assurances of enough sales to warrant the costs.

As NZ imports a whole pile of used garbage from Japan,there a lot of diesels in the country,,as a result,,our air is suffering/gunna suffer,,so the government have come down on older imports with diesel engines..Our annual registration fee for diesels has gone up considerably,,we have a RUC(road user charge)which effectively sees people paying two lots of taxes on the fuel,,the diesel is $1.50/litre(x 3.8 for US gallon)..
A friend with a 3 year old Nissan 4wd double cab utility is paying near $700 a year for his annual registration fee,,about $500 for 10000km on his RUC,,and a vehicle service is twice the price of a petrol vehicle..

I think it is like we talked about when you were here, Steve, the American mindset is that we like gas engines, for whatever reason. The auto makers also really push the gas cars more, from what I see. When I think diesel, I think of those trucks belching black smoke and sounding like a box of rocks. I know that is changing, but if I take myself as an example, when I go looking for a new car diesel is just not on the list of things I consider.

I guess it is just like why some of us are Ford people, some Chevy, etc. We grew up on gasoline and are resistant to change that history.

Don

The change to low sulfur diesel added steps to the refining process, and drove the cost of diesel up above gasoline. One of my boys bought a new VW with their TDI engine and he likes it, getting a best of 44mpg in his 25mile commute so far, still getting broken in. As has been said, the computer controls make them quieter and eliminate the sooty exhaust if pressed beyond their power limit at any given rpm.