Hi all,
Just got back from Europe yesterday, my first time to Germany visiting friends, and we rented a BMW 3-series touring sedan with one of their diesel v-6's with the six-speed auto. I'm guessing it was the 330, but not sure...there were no tags on the car that indicated the model and the manual was in German. Anyway, driving that car around for a week has me convinced that the North American auto market is missing out big time on modern diesel technology. Performance was excellent, it had great acceleration, it topped out at about 140mph (228kph...I love the autobahn!) and I got a combined
6.8L/100km which translates to about 34.6 mpg while regularly running the autobahn at 100-110mph. It was about as quiet as my wife's Saturn Aura, though the engine did make a different sound, more like a four cylinder gas engine. And never once did I catch a whiff of diesel exhaust stink.Just thought I'd share...