First drive Ram 1500 diesel

itguy08 wrote:

spoon059 wrote:

Why? If the diesel gets 28 and the hemi gets 18 on the highway and you tow 6 times a year... why not?
15,000 miles a year average 24 mpg is 535 gallons of diesel at $3.75/gallon is $2008/year in fuel prices.
15,000 miles a year average 18 mpg is 833 gallons of gas at $3.30/gallon is $2750/year in fuel prices.

Let's put some real #'s to it comparing another tow rig - the Ecoboost 3.5. Have a 2011 F150 with the EB, 3.73's and Max Tow. Averaging about 16.5 in mixed driving in the 11 degree weather here in PA. Once the weather warms up I suspect I can flirt with 20 MPG.

15000 miles @ 16.5 MPG = 909 gallons of gas
15000 miles @ 23 MPG (Ecodiesel as reported by the journalist in mixed driving) = 652 gallons of Diesel.

Now here's the kicker - the cost of Diesel:

Flying J @ Carlisle, PA : Regular $3.33 Diesel: $4.19

909 gallons of Regular : $3,026.97
652 gallons of Diesel : $2,731.88

So the DIesel saves me $295.09 per year or a payback of roughly 10 years. And that's not including the more expensive Diesel maintenance and hoping a HPFP or something similar doesn't break along the way.

Should I flirt with 20 MPG any savings will be erased. And I'm driving a proven powerplant to boot.

Wow, that has to be a worst case scenario on Diesel to Regular price spread. All over the PNW, I've only observed a 10 to 15% price increase in diesel. So regular here is around $3.30 and Diesel is around $3.75.

However, lets get realistic. I'll site a source, the EIA. Here's the US' Average Fuel Price Spread: $3.30 regular vs. $3.87 diesel. So roughly a 57 cent mark-up or 17% mark-up. Not too bad. so using your numbers above:

909 gallons of regular: $3,000 bucks
652 gallons of diesel: $2,524 bucks

So that's an annual savings of $476.

Now onto the subject of maintenance. Everyone seems to assume the Ecodiesel will have the same maintenance schedule as a gasser, and will use the same amount of oil as a Cummins or Powerstroke. I honestly don't know how much oil it will take. However, I also notice that nobody sites that modern turbo-gasoline engines site the need for a semi-synthetic while you can still use good ol' dyno oil in a diesel. Oil alone, I spend only $40 bucks. On my F-150 that demanded semi-synthetic (I ran full-synthetic anyways, but I'll use semi-syn prices that I personally observed), I spent about $30 bucks per oil change (a jug and a half). So I spend $10 more bucks on oil for my diesel. For my oil filter, it only costs $7 bucks more

Annual Fuel Filter: $80 to $100 depending on diesel... ecodiesel filters just as expensive? Who knows, I don't own one nor do I know its filtering requirements, so I have to assume HD prices but it will most likely be closer to a VW (which I never owned) than a Cummins.
Annual oil fluid cost increase: $20 (assuming 2 changes a year) increase over my F-150
Annual increase in typical DIY servicing? $140 bucks

Still looks like you come out ahead. Again, in this quick analysis, I'm assuming the same 6 month or 7,500 mile servicing interval. On the newest Cummins motors though, the servicing interval is 6 months or 15,000 miles. In the end, we can't really come up with a conclusive argument on fuel filter costs for the new 3.0 VM Motori mill. However, if Fiat/RAM feels like making its oil changes 1 year or 15,000 miles, then that could blow another hole in the "Diesels are way more expensive to service" argument. Looking at how long many posters hold onto their vehicles on these boards, the payback could be there. However, I would want to wait until I see some posts on fuelly about average MPG. I personally thought about upgrading my 2010 F-150 to a 2013 F-150 if it would still work for me. However, seeing that the mpg's for an Ecoboost are really only 1 mpg better with the same configuration as my 2010 F-150 (albeit with more bottom stump pulling power), it wasn't worth it for me (and really more of a let-down fuel economy wise). Also the wife wanted something bigger in the future so I had to go HD.

The potential for costly service is there though, I will not deny that with the new high pressure common rail fuel injection systems. However, you have similar issues on the gas side with HP fuel pumps ran off the cams, DI fuel injectors and turbochargers (and in some cases 2 of them). Sooted-up intake valves. However these costly services are rare and the issues that happen on the net make it sound like the issue applies to all of the respective vehicle (gas or diesel).

(edit) I did read an article on the VM Motori 3.0 and it is a neat mill. From the article, it looks like it actually is a little old-school for a new diesel. Namely surprised that the injectors are solenoid actuated (that ought to cut injector prices to less than half). However I am still worried about the Bosch CP4 pump it'll use, again similar to VWs, Fords and Duramaxes. I wish they coulda just stuck with the CP3 but apparently it doesn't put out enough pressure. I earnestly hope that this engine turns out to be a cheaper lighter-duty class of diesel like the VW diesels. Looking at how low the premium is for the VM Motori motor, I'd assume that it'd cost only 1 or 2 grand over a gas engine if the engine ever needed to be swapped. This would be a far smaller specter to fear than the current 12k+ price that HD diesel motors command.