I always wonder why these big V6 engines are still so common in the US. I'm driving a 2 liter diesel in a BMW X3 (a heavy car, 4wd, automatic) and still get 34 mpg. The 2 liter engine is plenty powerful for this big car. Too powerful maybe, looking at the speeding tickets I got with this car since I have it.
A modern 3 liter TDI is crazy powerful. I really see no practical use case for those engines, other than engaging in speeding contests between Audi's, BMW's and Mercedeses in the leftmost lane of the autobahn. And since there is no autobahn in the US, why do they buy them? I think for normal cars, 1.6 - 2.0 liter 4 cylinder is enough.
V6 engines are typically smoother and produce more torque down low in the powerband, which is the range most people drive. So even though the peak capabilities are overkill, basically, an engine capable of 160mph is nicer to drive at 65mph than an engine capable of 85mph. As a result, they are desirable to many consumers. Tiny 4 cylinders are catching up, but that's the thing- it has always been a game of catchup for the 4 cylinder.
Oh, and further in defense of the V6- remember not everyone has the same needs as you. I have recently come to own a 4.0L V6. Ridiculous, right? Twice as many liters and twice as many cylinders as I ought to need. Except, at 12,000ft you've suddenly got a lot less engine. My old 2.2L H4 at-speed required pedal-to-the-metal to gain speed, and 4k+ RPM just to maintain speed.
The government is not subsidizing diesels because it's yet another combustion engine. Other than the quoted "industry representatives" want you to believe, diesels produce plenty of carcinogenic, extremely difficult to filter particles. If anything, the government should be taxing these cars 10+ grand for the extra costs they will incur in the health system down the road.
Diesel is also in no conceivable way a new technology, and from what I know it's rare established hundred-year-old technologies that have been used in consumer products for at least fifty years are given generous subsidies.
Diesel used to be significantly cheaper than gasoline.
I believe the price has gone up due to increased demand or less supply. Diesel is less refined than gasoline, and I believe the refineries in the USA are optimized for producing more gasoline than diesel and to change this is not a small or cheap task. There would be pressure from the transport industry, eg trucking, shipping, rail, to keep the price of diesel as low as possible, and restricting demand by restricting the availability of diesel vehicles would be one way.
I would love to get a small pick up truck with a diesel engine - you can't buy one in North America today.
I had several 1980 era Toyota Land Cruisers, a 2500 kg 4WD vehicle, and they got 30 MPG. I literally drove from regina to calgary, 800km, on one tank, which was 84 litres.
You can't buy a small pickup in the US because of the "Chicken Tax" and CAFE. The chicken tax dates from the early 1960s and imposes a 25% duty on non-NAFTA trucks. The CAFE formula includes both a vehicle's "footprint" & it's weight, and light trucks get penalized.
I agree with you, btw. Honda had a V6 diesel motor under development that would have been used in the Ridgeline (and Odyssey & Pilot), but Chairman Ito stopped work on it. The V6 diesel and 8-speed transmission in the Jeep Grand Cherokee is very impressive and should be a good fit for the RAM 1500 pickup.
That mileage doesn't seem that good to me. I've got a petrol honda accord, it's a 2.2 L and I can drive auckland to wellington (just over 650 km) on a 55L tank. My friends with diesel golf's can do Auckland to Wellington and nearly halfway back on one tank though.
Roger. My TDI Golf regularly gets more than 50 MPG on highway trips and averages 36 in our driving which is almost exclusively urban, easily more than the sluggish Honda Fit it replaced.
Unfortunately the VW and Audi still suffer from reliability problems. Two friends both with TDI VW cars suffered (Bosch) fuel pump failure that destroyed their engines to a large degree and cost about $6000 to repair.
I'm in the UK and I've have a couple of vehicles, both European and both diesel. Not VW! They are great. I wouldn't buy anything else. Fuel here is expensive so it's a good idea to keep it simple.
I had a 2006 Citroen C3 diesel. Even with the air con on full whack, I could get 64mpg out of it on an average ~60mph journey. In London traffic, I got 52mpg out of it.
I now have a 2006 Fiat Doblo 1.3 diesel van/people carrier. This is a much larger vehicle but it's genuinely hard not to get at least 46mpg out of it with 5 people and a load of crap in it. On my own, 58mpg.
The latter had a timing chain replaced for around £500 but apart from consumables, no problems in several years.
I really don't get it when I see someone in a Dodge Ram (suddenly become popular in the UK?!?) hammering it up the motorways with no load or passengers.
Diesel is about 11% more energy dense by volume than gasoline. So if you're buying diesel for less than 11% more than gas, you're getting a good deal.
When I was looking at cars the diesels had a premium of about $5,000 over the equivalent gas car. That's over four years of gas if you drive 15,000mi/yr at 50MPG and $4/gal or 3.75 years at 45MPG. That's something else to consider.
While diesel high MPG cars are not new in Europe, with for instance the VW Bluemotion [1] , it is not necessarily better than unleaded gasoline.
It's true diesel rejects less CO2 than unleaded gasoline cars but it also rejects more NO2 and has some unhealthy particles [2].
So diesel is good for people who drive hundreds of miles in big landscapes, but in cities and suburb, investing in better unleaded/hybrid cars seems wiser.
I have a diesel VW Golf BlueMotion 1.6 from 2011. Sticking to the motorway at 70mph (which is what I originally bought it for) it really burns less than 72mpg, it's fantastic; in the more prosaic stop/start city commute, it averages out around 50mpg. Still, I spend less than £1k in fuel per year, and it's quite a win.
I really, really wanted a hybrid, back then; but the price of a Prius in the UK was ridiculously high (haven't checked recently), and on long motorway trips it likely wouldn't have paid off.
[+] [-] Maarten88|12 years ago|reply
A modern 3 liter TDI is crazy powerful. I really see no practical use case for those engines, other than engaging in speeding contests between Audi's, BMW's and Mercedeses in the leftmost lane of the autobahn. And since there is no autobahn in the US, why do they buy them? I think for normal cars, 1.6 - 2.0 liter 4 cylinder is enough.
[+] [-] sliverstorm|12 years ago|reply
Oh, and further in defense of the V6- remember not everyone has the same needs as you. I have recently come to own a 4.0L V6. Ridiculous, right? Twice as many liters and twice as many cylinders as I ought to need. Except, at 12,000ft you've suddenly got a lot less engine. My old 2.2L H4 at-speed required pedal-to-the-metal to gain speed, and 4k+ RPM just to maintain speed.
[+] [-] lechevalierd3on|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] revelation|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snowwindwaves|12 years ago|reply
I would love to get a small pick up truck with a diesel engine - you can't buy one in North America today.
I had several 1980 era Toyota Land Cruisers, a 2500 kg 4WD vehicle, and they got 30 MPG. I literally drove from regina to calgary, 800km, on one tank, which was 84 litres.
[+] [-] chiph|12 years ago|reply
I agree with you, btw. Honda had a V6 diesel motor under development that would have been used in the Ridgeline (and Odyssey & Pilot), but Chairman Ito stopped work on it. The V6 diesel and 8-speed transmission in the Jeep Grand Cherokee is very impressive and should be a good fit for the RAM 1500 pickup.
[+] [-] te_chris|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrownaway2424|12 years ago|reply
Unfortunately the VW and Audi still suffer from reliability problems. Two friends both with TDI VW cars suffered (Bosch) fuel pump failure that destroyed their engines to a large degree and cost about $6000 to repair.
[+] [-] harrytuttle|12 years ago|reply
I had a 2006 Citroen C3 diesel. Even with the air con on full whack, I could get 64mpg out of it on an average ~60mph journey. In London traffic, I got 52mpg out of it.
I now have a 2006 Fiat Doblo 1.3 diesel van/people carrier. This is a much larger vehicle but it's genuinely hard not to get at least 46mpg out of it with 5 people and a load of crap in it. On my own, 58mpg.
The latter had a timing chain replaced for around £500 but apart from consumables, no problems in several years.
I really don't get it when I see someone in a Dodge Ram (suddenly become popular in the UK?!?) hammering it up the motorways with no load or passengers.
[+] [-] vondur|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmm|12 years ago|reply
When I was looking at cars the diesels had a premium of about $5,000 over the equivalent gas car. That's over four years of gas if you drive 15,000mi/yr at 50MPG and $4/gal or 3.75 years at 45MPG. That's something else to consider.
[+] [-] thedrbrian|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vmarsy|12 years ago|reply
It's true diesel rejects less CO2 than unleaded gasoline cars but it also rejects more NO2 and has some unhealthy particles [2].
So diesel is good for people who drive hundreds of miles in big landscapes, but in cities and suburb, investing in better unleaded/hybrid cars seems wiser.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueMotion
[2] http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/world-health-organization-...
[+] [-] toyg|12 years ago|reply
I really, really wanted a hybrid, back then; but the price of a Prius in the UK was ridiculously high (haven't checked recently), and on long motorway trips it likely wouldn't have paid off.
[+] [-] ubercore|12 years ago|reply