The future of diesel passenger cars in the US

How does NC pay for the maintenance of its roads and highway? Through excise taxes on motor vehicle fuel sales? Then I can see their point, if people are buying less fuel, but driving same amount, then impact on roads is not going to be covered by fuel tax to same extent as previously - and they need to make up the shortfall somehow.

Driven the Euro vs. very nice, pulls out of turns like no tomorrow! Goes into them like a Bat outta Hell...

and will probably still get 45 mpg

nothing special going on for diesel vehicles ... my 8k lb Cummins 12v diesel 4x4 truck gets 20-22 mpg, no sweat...

what's Jetta diesel weight? 3k lbs?
fuel mileage per lb is about the same

Yeah a good friend of mine has a Cummings 1 ton ram and he talks about getting astonishingly good mileage for a 1 ton..... I want to say he was flirting with 30 mpg on the freeway but dont quote me

I just read about jeep bringing the JK to the states next year. I keep my cars untill they finally give up and stop on the side of the road. I would like a car with a engine that will last and give me good gas mileage.

Well, that sure takes the diesels out of contention, then, eh?

Porsche needs to bring over that Cayenne S diesel, the new v8 version... That sounds fun!

yup it's true .. first gen Cummins with 3.07 rear end would routinely get 27+ mpg.

if I keep it under 55 mph, mileage goes up to 24 mpg for my 96 12v Cummins. these trucks are not too streamline so how fast has a huge effect on mileage.

I have not read all 5 pages...Tired and don't feel all that well....but here is the answer to the OP's post.

Diesel in the US is a dirty word....has been and will be for some time to come.

I have/was around the auto business during the time of the supremely stupid ideas of turning gas engines into diesel....remember those nightmares from GM.

I do think that as soon as the real truth of this hybrid boondoggle comes to pass we will see bio-diesel be the next "green" fuel.

Like I said not doin real well right now so it may not make much sense...but diesel will be a long time coming to the US....real shame. I remember back in the early 90's we had some Europe only Diesel BMW's to look at and those where fantastic cars....fast, clean, great mileage....and next to the Olds we had to mess with...good god, it was like a F15 Vs. the wright flyer.

Anyone under 40 doesn't know anything about the GM fiasco, or at least certainly doesn't have any first hand experience.

I think there's something else at play.

Fuel taxes and oil companies that pay for elections.

...with a manual trans

Good luck finding one of them here in the US.

M

You could say that about my 'Stoke too. If I kept it to a dull roar, I'd get low-20s mpg on road trips. Dull roar = 62-65mph. The ex- had it going 80+ on the trip back from West Fest with Shogs and Jon in the truck. I hate to guess what the mileage was that trip! :eek1

My truck had 4.11s in the back and was geared to tow at 55mph, so anything faster was sucking the fuel.

M

Something interesting I noticed was how popular diesel now is in Ireland.

I started going back in 2007 on a yearly basis. In 2011 I rented a Passat diesel. Prior to that only gas seemed to be offered.

Last fall I ended up with a diesel Astra Opel.

It just seems weird that a country could seem to switch the way it did. Or was diesel always really popular in Ireland? Actually, I don't even recall seeing any diesel cars prior to that, though I wasn't really looking.

Oh, and that Astra was a dog! It handled well, but getting up to speed took some effort. A 2.0 liter turbo diesel would be a blast on those roads.

we had to custom order ours from Volkswagen after I asked the fleet manager how many stick's they had slated for order he looked though his manifest for about 10 pages and said "......well..... none"
Having said that, we got our car about 4 months early while everyone else had to wait forever to get their DSG's



and, let me tell you, with the Diesel Geek short shift kit installed...... very slick!

What I am trying to say is it left a real bad taste in the mouths of American auto makers....this is why you don't see even the diesel Europe cars here...they think americans will not buy them.

Diesel is IMHO the fuel of the future, cheap easy to make, clean. But those that run the country have decided it is for tractors and trucks....and the brain washing on hybrid has the general population thinking that it is the end all and be all.

Nope, no European diesels to be seen over here, none at all...

I still have mine new, never installed in the box.