Bye Ford ranger....

that's what happens if you are for 15+ years in production and still depend on mazda to produce some parts for you. I guess that's what "after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan hurt U.S. manufacturing" is in reference to here:

and now that you'd supposedly get cheaper gas

who needs small trucks anyway? It's so unBig Cahuna like to drive a small pickup. Everyone knows small pickup truck drivers in the US don't get laid, you've got to have F-150 for that if you are in the states ;^)))))

Why any body in their right mind at ford would not think a small displacement turbo diesel truck would not sell is beyond me.

bob

Oh, I think the people at Ford are pretty sure it would sell. But they would be selling it to people who otherwise would be buying a more expensive Ford truck that would cost less to make.

They'll start selling it in the US when they are forced to by their competitors.

--scott

>>

nobody's going to sell a small diesel truck any time soon. just like they don't sell small diesel cars [unless they're uber-expensive and very low volume].

reason: oilcos. they're not going to sit about and watch their sales drop by 30% overnight. absolutely no freakin' way.

the real irony is that frod have a while range of halfway competent small diesels they've been selling in europe for 20+ years. cheap. proven. absolutely no reason they can't be made/sold here - apart from the oilco political barrier.

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spelling: "whole" range

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The oil co's may have something to do with ir, but, a bigger reason is the initial cost after the Diesel is outfitted to pass out EPA regs for them. When you throw in the extra $0.35/gal for fuel and the maintenance, it doesn't make sense to use a Diesel instead of a gas burner. I know Diesel can be made to run as smoothly and quietly as a gas burner but, most US drivers don't see it that way. Until they get the up front and maintenance cost in line with a gas burner, they won't be selling to a mass market in the US. Lastly, as you may recall, GM poisoned the water with their Olds Diesel back in the 70's/80's. Many of us just don't trust the US manufacturers to produce anything they can live with in a Diesel.

Lugnut

>>>>

most of those epa regs are oilco sponsored for the reason i stated earlier. just like "safety" regs for passenger vehicles that make cars heavier and heavier thus negating the more efficient gasoline engines that have been developed so fuel economy today is frequently worse than it was in the 80's. my civic does 34mpg overall average. you're lucky to get 32mpg on the honda fit with exactly the same size engine, but with a significantly more advanced fuel delivery and management system.

that is more than offset by better fuel efficiency [20-30%] - you save money using diesel.

sorry, but you've been fed misinformation there. modern diesels, particularly with their extended oil change intervals, are very much competitive or even better in maintenance costs than gasoline.

the only department where diesel is at a disadvantage here in the u.s. is lack of knowledge among the average high street vehicle mechanic. if you've ever been to europe, where diesels are 50% or more of the market, there is no mystery and no difficulty finding people who can work on them. and there's no mechanic price differential like there is here.

no, they're still not /that/ quiet or smooth. they're /way/ better than they used to be, and quieter than old gasoline engines even, but diesels are still not capable of being as quiet or smooth - something of a physical impossibility.

they're ahead of gasoline in running costs. most definitely.

"poisoned" is exactly right. another case of this:

if you ask me.

i say this because g.m. produce large quantities of smooth, quiet, clean economical diesels in europe. as do frod. there is absolutely /nothing/ preventing them bringing them over here other than oilco/political appeasement.

go test drive an audi a3 turbo diesel [which /is/ imported here]. that motor will blow all your preconceptions and your mind.

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Automakers don't care about the oil companies. The relationship has never been particularly good let alone cozy enough to dictate product mix.

Most of the rest of the world uses small diesel pickups. However diesel for passenger cars and other light trucks other than oversized pickups has never caught on in the US market despite several attempts by various automakers. It really took a blow with GM's attempt to make diesel engine with one originally designed for gasoline.

>>>>

Yup, at that time your options were Oldsmobile (the one that Brent is referring to) Volkswagen (also a converted gasoline engine, albeit successful - but woefully underpowered, even for a little Rabbit) and Mercedes-Benz (don't know much about the engine technically, but also slow) so Diesels got a reputation for being slow and/or expensive to maintain and unreliable depending on who you were talking to. Unfortunately little has happened to change that perception; only VW has been bringing a small Diesel over to the US lately, and that's been kind of on again, off again. Mercedes and BMW seem to have all but given up.

nate

> who needs small trucks anyway? >

Guys in the big trucks here give me endless shit about my 'cute' Ford Ranger. I just tell them with a very straight face, in front of their mother and everyone:

"I know. I'm just overcompensating for having such a large penis."

That shuts them up better than you'd think.

Also, I think I'm done with trucks. But if I were going to buy another truck, I'd jump on a small diesel one in a heartbeat if I could. IIRC Isuzu used to make them back in the 1980s, (and I know the rest of the world is knee-deep in them) but it's sad we don't have more diesel cars and trucks here. I would expect everyone to forget the GM diesels of the 1980s the first time they drove a TDI or other German diesel car.

But no.

-J

Does not durango and it's pickup platformmate come available with 5/6speed and a diesel in the states?

I thought I saw some chrysler diesel pickups while I was in the US. Probably not the lightweights though but the kind usually found doing some actual cargo hauling and towing.

I should say though that diesel is more expensive than premium gas here now and we have 50/50 gas/diesel refineries output vs 75/25 in the states.

If you had that many diesels stateside imagine what the traffic would look like and how expensive the goods primarily delivered by semis would be.

Keeping cargo and passenger fleets on different food supplies kind of makes sense.

P.S. A friend of mine just found out the actual mileage on his family minivan (opel):

500000km (about 300000 miles).

that's just a freaking 10 year old car.