I'm not a crazy fan of the Nissan Titan's body style but I'm glad somebody is finally coming out with a small diesel engine half ton pickup.
http://blogs.insideline.com/straight...of-energy.html
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I'm not a crazy fan of the Nissan Titan's body style but I'm glad somebody is finally coming out with a small diesel engine half ton pickup.
http://blogs.insideline.com/straight...of-energy.html
Interesting... I read a few months back that Nissan was pulling the plug on the Titan because of lack of sales. Now they must be pulling the plug on pulling the plug.
The wife of my dad's work partner is VP of something, can't remember what at nissan and he told him about it.
Maybe Nissan IS pulling the plugs on the Titan. :)
http://cache0.bigcartel.com/product_...Plugs-JPEG.jpg
Its great to see someone finally doing this. I have been reading a lot about small diesels like the TDI comming out in the next two years in cars. I have not herd a solid confimed statement saying any 1/2 tons will get a diesel. I can tell you unless they make the titan under 4500 lbs that engine will be slow and get poor milage.
Several high end SUVs have diesels and all of them get high teens or very low 20s city due to weight vs power.
They're estimating 28mpg in the article. I agree though 220hp isn't much for a 1/2 ton 380 lb-ft of torque isn't too bad though.
Yea 28 is pretty nice and if you look at milage compared to a 1/2 ton truck your absolutly right in thinking man the milage is awesome, but when you go drive it and it feels like a 1 ton with a 4banger in it you will not be sold. Thats been the long time problem in making a Diesel afordable and marketable. You cant get both milage and cost at the same time. When you talk about trucks its even harder because people will automaticaly think, HAH i got a Diesel, im gonna hook up my farm trailer and pull it LOL.
There has been a lot of chatter about the Chevy Colorado pickup <S10 replacement> getting a 4 clynder diesel and i think that would be an AWESOME little truck. It would get really great milage and its still small enough to make you really think about hooking 10K to it and pulling LOL
If I could take the diesel out of my touareg and put it in a half tone truck that would be sweet...gobs of power. Fuel economy. And an eight speed tranny. Money baby
As long as manufacturers are posting 1/2 ton tow ratings that are 11,300 lbs you will have people trying to pull alot of weight with half ton trucks. I saw a f150 pulling a fifth wheel travel trailers a couple years ago. Looked like the rear end was riding on the bump stops! I do think a 6 cyl would be a better way to go tho
I was led to believe that they don't put the diesels into 1/2 ton trucks as 1/2 are considered "cars" and subject to the same crash/emissions requirements, where a 3/4 and up truck is considered a "truck" and not subject to the same crash/emissions requirements. seemed that the decisions were made by NTSB and EPA, not detroit.
a decent diesel in a 1/2 ton would be a huge hit if it had some good base numbers. we all know what companies like bully dog can do with a diesel so if this cummins is like the rest, 400hp and 600ft/lbs won't be far behind from the aftermarket..
Yup that was what has always been posted in the diesel mags about why you cant get a diesel in a 1/2 ton. It seams the public outcry for a diesel is finally being herd. I think this also might be why your seeing a much smaller diesel engine then you do in 3/4 and 1 ton trucks. I am sure you will see a lot of the aftermarket jump on board with these diesels too, to release the hiden power but the biggest problem is most of the aftermarket stuff is requires you to remove Emission equipment, thats ok when you dont see DEQ like my truck in OR.Quote:
Originally Posted by sandm
Lets say Claudia's TDI now, it has to goto Emissions in 4 years, then ever 2 after. So its a lit harder to tamper with it. Most of it could prolly be handles with a decent computer reprogram. Unfortunatly for her TDI its staying bone stock. She is averaging 43 MPG with less then 1K on the car, so engine hasnt even broken in yet. Since we are leasing it, i have no intentions of spending anything on it. Not even tires LOL. All the servies are included in the lease so all i technically have to play for is brakes and tires.
I don't know that there is a real public outcry for diesels in 1/2 ton trucks at this point. If there was a true outcry, the big 3 would already have them in european countries as diesels are preferred over there.
the guys that need to tow heavy loads really need a diesel 3/4 ton. guys like me(and probably 90% on this board) use the truck to tow a boat to a ramp occasionally and at this point, the gas v8 does the job just fine.
the math of economics will determine if a diesel really is cost-justified, just like high-mpg cars. Chevy has idled the production line that makes the volt as the demand is not there. could be the same thing with smaller diesel trucks depending on price.. as technology like the ecoboost becomes more widely available and fits the needs of 90% of truck owners, would be interesting to see the sales numbers of boosted-v6 engines and smaller diesels..
at the end of the day tho, the consumer would win with more choices...
fwiw, emissions inspections always have a workaround. I had no cats on my last 2 mitsu evos. passed every time. there are ways to trick the ecu into thinking they are there. never felt guilty as turbo'ed motors are cleaner than their normally aspriated bretheren, it's all gov't hype.. :)
I would say the demand for this is there if in fact they can come up with a combo that gets good power as well as 28 mpg combined. No other 1/2 ton truck comes close to this and I will also venture to say that not only would the market go for it but they manufacturers may have to get on board to meet new federal fuel mileage requirements.
As for diesels in their half ton bretheren in europe, there just are not many 1/2 pickups at all over seas however the trucks that are over seas are pretty much all diesel. The Australian ford ranger comes in a 4 cyl turbo diesel as well as a crew cab configuration. They dont sell F150s over there. After just traveling to singapore and south africa I would say most everything over seas is diesel. We seem to be the only ones in love with gas burners
I don't think it's that we are in love with gas, it's that the gov't knows what works best for us. I'm sure that is due, in part, to big oil and lobbyists ensuring that diesels don't get a fair shake here.
28mpg would be nice, but I'm not sure we will see this in the next 5+ years. light trucks are in a different class when it comes to calculating an automakers CAFE standard, so right now, there's no incentive for them to improve mpg's and the fines are an absolute joke. saw one example where a higher end luxury car was being taxes $125 for every unit sold in the us due to failure to meet CAFE requirements. hardly noticable on a $75k car, not to mention by 2020, light trucks only need to be at 19mpg averaged out across the fleet on the window sticker, and if they don't, the fines are like mentioned above..
the gov't has made it real hard to bring diesels to the us and if automakes are not currently pushing 1/2 ton trucks with diesels overseas, I don't see a big push here anytime soon.
Heres a perfect example why i think our Gov and the Fuel companies dont want Diesel in the amercan mainstream.
Claudia's 09 Equinox 70 to fill it she got consistantly 280 miles per tank
Her new Passat TDI 70 to fill it and she got 600 miles on that tank.
2xs the milage 1/2 the fuel means she spends half the taxes, and gets twice the amount of use. This alone hurts the Gov taxation and the Fuel companies.
there is no doubt the better fuel mileage cars hurt the govt as far as taxes go, which is why there is talk about changing to a miles driven tax instead of a gas tax.
Now I say we are in love with gas motors because in the 80s during the little oil crisis a lot of the auto makers did diesel conversions on popular gas engines. These engines were awful, poorly designed and executed and at the time really turned the american public off to diesel engines in anything other than work horses. Granted that was almost 30 years ago but it's hard to break the mentality, just like how people think japanese cars are the best made stuff on the road.
Now when it comes to half ton trucks over seas, there isn't a market for them gas or diesel, in countries where gas is 9 bucks a gallon 28 mpg is still bad fuel mileage... The Ford ranger in australia is basically their version of an F150 and they have a diesel offering
I think the general population has not been turned off of diesels(yes, the 80's were a very bad time for them) and if they were readily available as an option, the public would be all over them-if the price was comparable to it's gas counterpart, but it boils down to our gov't placing such strict emissions requirements on them and the costs to certify them to be sold here make them cost-prohibitive for the masses. in a 60k mercedes bluetec diesel, a 3-4k add for diesel is nothing to a guy buying that car, but to add 2k onto a 15k car makes a big difference and for someone in that price class focusing on the monthly payment, they will take gas every time, even if it is a short-sided decision, not to mention the auto manuf. not wanting to add another 2k onto a sticker when they are competing in a razor-thin margin-ed segment as it is.
not sure on this one and too lazy to look it up, but isn't the aussie ranger also known as an f-100? I know that there was talk of replacing the ranger with a slightly larger truck and calling it the f-100 several years ago, but it has not been brought to market yet.. I got $5 that if this is the case and it has a diesel down under, it will not be sold here with one due to the costs to make it epa compliant..