We don't get the 6-speed manual 335d here... but you knew that right?

 

my family owns Toyota/Hyundai dealership in Europe. Right now, our petrol engines dont have any particular issues, however diesels?

- clutch/transmission wear - check
- turbo failures - check
- fuel pump failures - check
- basic engine design issues - check

And thats with brands that are #1 and #4 as rated by the Germans. I am talking in general, from what i see in service bays and what our friends at Renault and VW tells us. Fact is that diesels with their high boost turbos, aluminium blocks, high pressure injectors, expensive high tech cats, and high low rpm torque put a lot of pressure on vehicle powertrain, especially in city driving, that does not exist in petrol engines.

We sell 50% diesels... rest assured that I know what I am talking about when I say that diesels are less reliable, by far. In fact, most reliable car that we have serviced? Prius. Except for wear on door handles, cars never had an issue that we had to fix... Sounds a lot better than replacing engine blocks on brand new diesels.

And whenver you read Autobild's review of 3-5 year old used diesel vehicle, it is the same story - worn transmission/clutch/turbos, there was huge story just few months ago on diesel chipping (which was insanely popular and still is) which proved that most of chipped diesels cant live more than 100k miles without major engine jobs.

Some brands are affected more - for instance you can find used Audi V6 diesel for 10-15% lower price than 4cly (because almost every one of V6's fail before 100k miles).


Of course, you guys will learn all of that yourself if diesels get popular in USA, but with the high cost of both tech and fuel, I very much doubt that.

 

what he is talking about is that 4cly diesels have around 1.5k-2k of usable RPM range... meaning you tend to shift a lot if you want to be fast.

Overly simplyfing it, good diesel today gets nice full boost around 1.8k and starts dropping around 3.5k... at 4k it is like hitting brick wall. It used to be much worse with 2k-3.2k effective range.

But people buy them in europe because they are still faster than small petrols, and they consume a lot less fuel in the city, while being faster, and their resale value drops a lot less so you save what you paid more originally just at the resale.

For Toyota range, everything larger than Auris, diesel is sure buy... even for Auris, 1.4 D4D is better purchase than 1.6l petrol if you have the money. to buy it.

I have yet to try new Valvematics that are just coming out with their 10-15% improvement in fuel consumption and power so that might tip the scale a bit back toward small petrols... and the fact that lately petrol is cheaper than diesel which before was not the case.

 

why people buy diesels in Europe? (4cly)
+ faster
+ a lot lower consumption
+ price of fuel was lower
+ high resale value

-higher purchase price
-higher maintainance

Now if you bring those reasons to USA for 335i vs 335d:
+ lower consumption (but lesser difference than Europe because of more highway driving)

- higher cost of fuel
- lower performance
- more noise/less luxury
- higher maintainance
- no difference in resale (if not opposite)

it is just my IMHO... I have owned many diesel cars, some of which were/are considered best in class. I have driven many others. I personally think that someone in Europe not buying diesel for vehicle larger than Corolla is pretty crazy. But Europe is Europe and USA is USA.

 

The diesel is gonna be a torque monster

 

For all of the stubborn crap talking you did in this thread, doug, I hope you're at least a little humbled at this point. Not only is the 335d not faster to 30 or 45, it's significantly slower. This is all Edmunds testing, automatic 335d vs 335i sedan. Maybe you'll be a little more cautious in the future when talking about this sort of stuff.

335d
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do.../pageId=158404

0 - 30 (sec): 2.3
0 - 45 (sec): 3.8
0 - 60 (sec): 5.9
0 - 75 (sec): 8.4
1/4 Mile (sec @ mph): 14.1 @ 99.1

_____________________________________________

335i
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do.../pageId=124138

0 - 30 (sec): 1.8
0 - 45 (sec): 3.2
0 - 60 (sec): 4.9
0 - 75 (sec): 7.2
1/4 Mile (sec @ mph): 13.4 @ 103.9

 

OMG - this is funny.... No wonder why I don't come around here much.... Let's look at what BMW did here...(and yes, maybe you will get all your facts before telling someone they are crap talking)...

per C&D...
"You may wonder, with all this launch muscle on tap, why the 335d isn’t any quicker than it is. A 335i is capable of sprinting to 60 mph in fewer than five seconds. The 335d gets there in a little less than six—5.7 seconds for our test car. But check the gearing. The six speeds in the automatic are the same for both 335i and 335d, but the 335i’s rear diff is 3.46:1 versus the 335d’s much taller 2.81:1. At 80 mph, the diesel is turning at about 2000 rpm."

I'm hoping this helps you understand a little more - apology accepted.