The Evil Dr. Diesel may have a point

Seems diesel technolegy is advanceing in leaps and bounds now, proberbly because all research before hand was focused upon econemy rather than performance I suppose.

I was quite impressed when the bmw diesel almost kept up with the petrol model around the top gear track.

Still sound like trucks though and wear out twice as fast even WITH twice as many oil changes... And lots of low rpm is great in town in traffic but they run out of steam when you rev em...

I hear spell checker technology has come on in leaps and bounds recently, too.

Some of us rarely need them, though.

That's about as many torques as a fair few n/a V8s. :-) :D

Aye, all other things equal, dervs will never equal petrols on performance terms, due to physics.

But they go on to make more power as you accelerate, rather than just more noise/smoke etc...

s/physics/transmissions/.

The problem is the gearbox - do away with the current type, and things become a lot different. Pity it's so hard to make CVT work..

cheers, clive

It'll be a chore to drive. Powerful diesels just run out of puff all to fast in each gear. Speaking from vast experience of having driven 1 modern performance diesel, Mondeo TDCi 6 spd - i'd imagine the Alfa would be better than that tho. Although to be fair, it did pull well - shame about the interior.

Yeah, I'd much rather have an LPG fuelled V8. Had a few in BC, much better I reckon, not just because it's cheaper. Oil lasts longer, all that crap.

Volvo S60 D5 - 185bhp / 295lb ft - chips to 225bhp and 339 lb ft.

I know where my money would go!

Me too, you've got two engines, one Volvo and one Alfa, that in standard form have identical peak torque figures, and the Volvo engine has 15bhp less peak power. Both are probably chippable to a similar degree, making the Alfa the more capable engine. I'd go Alfa.

Yes... but you buy Renaults amongst other things.

"I rest my case, m'lud"

I was thinking that, too.

Plus, I'd want something that looks nice and handles. That's the Volvo out of the question, then.

But alfas are italian junk.

Rather than American trash?

GM

I aways find the ability to complete the journey is an essential characteristic of a motor vehicle - hence Alfa not being in my garage...

Fail to see the link here, given that GM don't have any input into the

159 JTD. GM use Fiat / Alfa JTD lumps, in exchange Fiat get bare blocks from GM to build the JTS engines. There's no financial links between the two.

Whereas Volvo are entirely owned by the blue oval.

On a T5?

James