2012 May Be the End of Mankind But 2013 Will Be the Year of the Diesel

[herm]

I was hoping urea injection would allow it.

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Originally Posted by herm

I was hoping urea injection would allow it.

Biodiesel helps with the particulates rather than the NOx, I believe.

I think the best hope is Mazda's design, which is intended to reduce emissions with improved combustion. Their Skyactiv-D page refers to both lowered NOx and soot.

I would expect that any modern diesel vehicle that could run on a high-blend biodiesel would be in great demand.

[2RR2NV]

Originally Posted by xcel

Hi Herm:

No modern disel can use B99 as it screws up the DPF.

Wayne

well, that sux!! not cool. need to find an ole VW.

[xcel]

Hi All:

Given today marks the birthday of Rudolph Diesel, the individual who invented the engine that bears his name, we might as well recap this one...

Rudolph unveiled his new device at the 1900 World's Fair, showing how it could run on peanut oil. Diesel engines have been widely successful in ships, locomotives, and big trucks. However, when it comes to cars, many in the U.S. continue to feel that diesel engines mean pollution, vibration and excess cost outweighing their greater fuel economy. The introduction of lower sulfur fuel and the development of advanced, quiet, and smooth designs has meant that half the cars sold in Europe are diesel-powered. Across the U.S., our cars and trucks use 168 billion gallons of fuel a year, a demand far larger than our domestic crude oil production...

Wayne

[CraigW]

Interestingly, in the UK, the (already high) diesel use will slacken slightly as much smaller-engined petrol equivalents come to market. I've heard tell of a new Ford 1.0 litre petrol unit, which delivers the same mpg as a 1 litre, but with the power of a 1.6, which will be fitted to the Focus.

[WriConsult]

It is too bad today's diesels can't run B99. They could certainly be designed to, if the manufacturers had an incentive to make it work.

As it is, we're sticking with our 2000 Golf. The 90hp A4-type engine really was the sweet spot for TDIs, with plenty of power (IMO) and far better urban mpg than today's TDIs: 38mpg under the current EPA regime. Compare that with 31mpg for the current overpowered models, in some cases producing higher CO2 emissions than comparable gas cars. Plus, we can -- and do -- burn B99 in ours.

[RedylC94]

Originally Posted by WriConsult

As it is, we're sticking with our 2000 Golf. The 90hp A4-type engine really was the sweet spot for TDIs ...

From your experience with it, do you agree with the stereotype of VWs, including TDIs, being especially costly and troublesome to maintain?

[PaleMelanesian]

If 2012 is the end of the world, where/when did Marty McFly go?

[WriConsult]

Originally Posted by RedylC94

From your experience with it, do you agree with the stereotype of VWs, including TDIs, being especially costly and troublesome to maintain?

My VW travails are well documented on this site. After buying our Golf a few years ago, we liked it so much that we lost our heads ... deciding that the solution to the dearth of small wagons in the US market was to get a (gas) Jetta wagon. Fortunately it was cheap -- $6k for a (then) 7 year old model with just 75k on it. Let's compare the two:

• 2001 Jetta wagon, gas. Bought with 75k on it, sold with 110k. Maintenance cost was 22c per mile, fairly consistently over the time we had it. That's right, in 3 years I spent as much on maintenance as it had cost me to buy the car, so thank God it only depreciated $2k in that time. I had a lot of cooling system problems with it (some of which the previous owner had tried to mask with stop-leak, which just led to more problems) in the first year, which were eventually resolved. I had the usual litany of VW problems that cost $200-500 each: MAF and O2 sensors, window regulators (the left rear one is notorious), door locks and latches, leaky door seals, etc. The nail in the coffin for me was that the ECU started to glitch out after driving through a relatively modest puddle, causing all sorts of electrical haywire problems. Fixing that was $1100. Personally, I've always had a preference for Asian cars and I'm glad to be rid of the thing. As well as the Jetta drove, my Elantra Touring is even better -- and the monthly payments are barely more than I was paying in maintenance on the Jetta.
• 2000 Golf TDI. Bought with 140k on it, now up to 198k or so. Overall maintenance cost had fairly consistently been around 18c/mi last I looked, but I think it may have dropped a bit from there because we haven't had to do much lately. A big chunk of that cost was that the injector pump went out after about a year. Ignoring that, I would say this car has been considerably more reliable, hassle-free and cheaper to maintain than the Jetta, despite having way more miles on it. This is my wife's car BTW, not mine, so it's entirely her decision whether we keep it going. She has a soft spot for European cars, as well as for diesels, and it's basically her dream car. As long as it doesn't get wrecked, she hopes to get another 80-100k out of it, and I don't see why she wouldn't.

Basically my results with maintenance are consistent with the popular wisdom that there's no good reason for buying a gas-powered VW, but that the TDIs can be worth the trouble. We regretted buying the gas Jetta wagon, but we have never regretted buying the TDI.

On the other hand, my results contradict the popular wisdom that the Mexico and Brazil built models are crappily built, and that the German ones are awesome. But both of ours -- the good one and the bad one -- were built in Germany.

You will find a lot of defenders of VWs. They are really great cars to drive and tend to be much more nicely appointed than other cars in their class, and that creates a lot of loyalty. Also, I think a lot of VW owners are the new shade-tree mechanics, as many of their most loyal owners seem to do their own wrenching. Don't go on VW forums complaining too loudly about maintenance hassles and costs: you WILL be berated and belittled for your laziness in not working on your own car. Your choice of mechanic WILL be picked apart, and it WILL be assumed that your problems are because your mechanic is overcharging you. In other words, the attitude will be that the problem isn't the car. It's you.

The reality, of course, is that very few people do their own work anymore, almost everybody goes to a mechanic, and if do that with a VW you'll be making a lot more visits. And the parts costs are insane, and the failure rate for these expensive parts seems fairly high.

[RedylC94]

WriC:

Thanks for all the detail. That's about as expected. I might be interested in buying a used Golf TDI, if I weren't wary of the problems.

My brother had two earlier gasoline VWs, a '74 Dasher and an '85 Jetta. Both very good cars by the standards of their day in most respects, but both with a few exasperating design bugs. The Jetta went over 300K (estimated, because the odometer quit much earlier), with no major mechanical issues except screwy shift linkage.