ppine wrote:
It is surprising to me that is so much resistance to diesels in this country, mostly by people that have never driven one.
In the a lot of the West diesel costs the same as regular gas. The cost of maintenance is not that different. With diesels you need fuel filters and more quarts of oil. With gas engines you need spark plugs.
A diesel costs more upfront but maintains its value much better, gets better mileage, and lasts much longer with more torque.
With some bolt on parts my 7.3 liter Ford has gotten 23.8 mpg empty on flat ground. It gets 18 pulling a boat, about 15 pulling a trailer and around 13 pulling a heavier trailer. It is going up in value. After 16 years it is still worth over half of what I paid for it new.
The new small diesels are dependable engines with modern gear boxes with plenty of gears. I would love to own one, but will wait until there are some used ones around. There is no reason a small diesel truck can't get more like 28-30 mpg empty. They are plenty strong enough to pull modern trailers.
Mostly people who have never driven diesels? I have owned many diesels from a mechanical 5.9L to a 24-valve. I currently own two diesels, a Ram 2500 6.7L Cummins and a BMW 328d with an N47 4 cylinder diesel. Both of these vehicles have enough of a difference in fuel economy, total costs, performance, and/or capability versus their gasoline counterparts to warrant such an engine.
This is not the case with these small half ton diesels. They don't tow more than what it available. They don't haul more than what is available. They have significantly lower performance both loaded and unloaded that what is available. They have less low end torque than what is available. Their only benefit is fuel economy and there is not enough of a difference to warrant it as I posted earlier between the 3.5L Ecoboost and 3.0L Ecodiesel. I don't know if have ever driven a 3.5L Ecoboost, but it will outperform an Ecodiesel(and this Lion 3.0L) by a considerable margin both loaded and unloaded.
As far as many of these new small diesel being dependable versus the gasoline equivalent, that is debatable since many of the timing chain/belt driven diesels(like my N47) are just as failure prone as the gas engines and the gas engine seem to be able to last 200k or more in half tons. That is a common issue with these small diesels because the immense low end torque applied from the crank puts a strain on the chain greater than higher rpms would. Their longevity should not be compared to the bigger gear driven HD truck diesels.
