If diesel engines are more efficient, why do most cars have gasoline engines?

Saw this article on "How stuff works" and had a good chuckle.

No mention of CAFE, EPA, GM Diesels, CARB, etc.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question399.htm

And no mention that a lot of these points have not been true for European diesels for some time (13+ years).

how would the oil companies make money if we all had better mpg's in all the cars...

I was also of the belief that when they turn crude oil into the fuels and other liquids/gases, the come out in certain proportions, and the more they alter these proportions through hydrocracking etc... the less efficient and more expensive the whole process becomes.

The article almost reads like the original author was horribly anti-diesel, and then it went through a pro-diesel editor. (Note the last paragraph.)

snapdragon said:

I was also of the belief that when they turn crude oil into the fuels and other liquids/gases, the come out in certain proportions, and the more they alter these proportions through hydrocracking etc... the less efficient and more expensive the whole process becomes.

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Actually that is true. Of course the difference can be a small part of the cost or a large part. In most cases the difference is a small part.

Pretty good. I really like the TDI FAQ at the bottom of the page. Looks like it came from here! HA HA HA !!

I share one complaint with that list. Glow Plugs and cold weather. With all of our diesels, its kind of hit or miss. Thats also why we have block heaters. Unfortunatly, you can't hook up everywhere.

Diesel requires far less processing than gasoline. Far less. Typically, not enough gasoline is yeilded from the standard boiling off and recollection of crude vapors (they do it in a huge tower and different substances of different weights/boiling points gather at different levels) so they take heavier substances and send them to a cracking tower where, through heat and chemical interruption, the hydrocarbon chains are broken into shorter strands at or very close to the length of Gasoline. Diesel typically has a higher yeild, and is much lower in the tower.

Typrus said:

I share one complaint with that list. Glow Plugs and cold weather. With all of our diesels, its kind of hit or miss. Thats also why we have block heaters. Unfortunatly, you can't hook up everywhere.

Diesel requires far less processing than gasoline. Far less. Typically, not enough gasoline is yeilded from the standard boiling off and recollection of crude vapors (they do it in a huge tower and different substances of different weights/boiling points gather at different levels) so they take heavier substances and send them to a cracking tower where, through heat and chemical interruption, the hydrocarbon chains are broken into shorter strands at or very close to the length of Gasoline. Diesel typically has a higher yeild, and is much lower in the tower.

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Not really hit or miss...the car tells you when it needs to be replaced. I've had one go bad so far. Some folks still have original ones and over 100K miles. Must not be too much of an issue or lots of folks in Europe would be stranded

Do any passengar car diesel engines use glow grids like some of the Cummins engines?

I don't think so. Powerstrokes have a glow-stick essentially (massive glowplug) that pokes into the intake charge just before it ducks down into the engine.

We have factory ones at near 200k. They barely work worth anything.
How does it tell you? Ours hasn't indicated anything but its quite clear they aren't working right.

Our F-250's glows are trash at 130k, but haven't worked since we got it at 98k. Our Excursions factory glows still work pretty darn well at 98k. Thats more what I meant by hit or miss. Sometimes you get good ones that last a loooong time, other times you get a pile of trash.

Typrus said:

I share one complaint with that list. Glow Plugs and cold weather. With all of our diesels, its kind of hit or miss. Thats also why we have block heaters. Unfortunatly, you can't hook up everywhere.

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"Cold Weather" is not much of a problem with a well maintained TDI. Even without a block heater, people start their TDIs in -20 - -40 without issues.

diesel has a bad image of being dirty.

oguzooz said:

diesel has a bad image of being dirty.

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Thanks 80's *GM* and OTRs...

Typrus said:

Thanks 80's Chryslers and OTRs...

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I know you meant to say GM.....

Chrysler had no diesel powered cars. GM turned everyone off of diesels with their 350 conversions. Ford has a diesel MarkVI, but is was a BMW engine.

>.< Doh!

scooperhsd said:

"Cold Weather" is not much of a problem with a well maintained TDI. Even without a block heater, people start their TDIs in -20 - -40 without issues.

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yea I was up in Kelowna when it was pretty nipply out -26 plus whatever the wind factor was and the car started fine with no issues even when the car wasn't plugged in with my nice 1500 watt coolant heater

oguzooz said:

diesel has a bad image of being dirty.

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Diesel is dirty, just because it doesn't evaporate like gas. After looking in both compartments of a fuel truck, you will see a huge difference in caked on dirt.
Not to mention messy people who spill diesel all over the nozzle at the filling station. I've seen some people with a box of disposable gloves, because half the filling stations have a diesel covered nozzle. I just wash my hands in the washer fluid after.

I don't think so. Powerstrokes have a glow-stick essentially (massive glowplug) that pokes into the intake charge just before it ducks down into the engine.

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What year powerstroke? Our 97 has a traditional glow plug in the cylinder and relay type setup - no intake "preheating" on ours.

It's funny because when the orginal GPR was failing, the truck wouldn't start even as warm as 40-50F while the TDI doesn't even use glow plugs until below 40F.

Both our vehicles are able to be started as cold as -20F (as cold as it has gotten for a test!).

Our 99.5 has it removed and our 02 still has it in. The guy who had it last pulled it from the 99.5 because it obstructs a good bit of the intake charge. Its also debatable whether it does much good or not.

Our 99.5 F-250 refused to start above 60 if the night before had been much below 40. Plug in the block heater and it'd fire right up. Surefire sign of glow issues. Now the damned thing doesn't run at all. Either the HPOP or the ICM.

To answer the original question: before turbochargers, diesels tended to be dirty and slow. Turbochargers have been available for a long time, and superchargers even longer, but were fairly expensive for use in passenger cars.

Another thing to think about is that in Europe over 60% of the vehicles sold a diesel powered! There is a 1.4 liter diesel by Opel which meets the latest European enviromental/pollution code. I think that in the US diesels are not popular because they are seen as dirty and sluggish. Well, the E320 cdi is a marvelous vehicle! Happy New Year!

I may be wrong, wrong wrong, but are fuel usages detemined miles/gallon. I have obtained a lifetime average of 52.8 mpg after 90000 miles. I realize that diesel is a much higher energy fuel, but I still beat the crap out of every vehicle for emission output/fuel input in the country. These carb states need to learn 1950's60,s70,s80,s,90,s,00,s,10,s math, use less good, use more bad, you tree hugging idiots need to do your math. Thanks Karl

Semper Fi
Karl

Why? IMO becuase the big 3 with the oil company have bought and paid for politicians for many years now.

Plus in Europe fuel taxes, tax on the HP, and lifestyle make the diesel the econimic choice. In America its still cheap to drive 20mpg cars.

Increase fuel taxes and see what happens!

Articles like this are why diesels haven't caught on in the US (and it's important to point out that this is probably the only continent where diesels aren't prevelant). The disadvantages the author lists are old, old news. My 11 year-old Passat starts quickly and easily in the morning, is very quiet after a brief warm-up period, and feels plenty peppy with only a chip tuning. And I challenge most drivers to differentiate between my RC1+ A5 and a gasser version of the same car, except the TDI feels much more powerful in most situations.

The big reason there aren't more diesels here is ignorance. CARB ignorance, EPA ignorance, and, most important, American drivers' ignorance. If they only knew...

i wish people would get over the olds 350's,maybe it was the dirt slow and black smoke belching vw's of the early 80's that needed valve adj's at what every 20,000 miles??that turned people off.i've had at least a half dozen 350 diesels and a friends dad still has at least 6 of em.other then the typical headbolt problem,which all but one of them has had(84 buick still untouched)they have run just fine.hey all brands have their problems,if you don't believe me just look at the 6.0 fords.and people still buy them.at least GM tried,whereas ford,and dodge went out and bought somebody else's. i just don't think the american public was ready for diesels back in the late 70's early 80's.other then farmers around here that could run the fuel right out of their barrel,and an occasional salesman,most town people had no need for a high mpg car.and they cost more then a gasser.with the diesels GM has in europe right now in the opel's i almost wish GM would have kept oldsmobile running and kept it as the diesel division,if you want a diesel GM it's gonna be an olds.i'd take one in a heartbeat.i like my jetta but this "special" oil,anti-freeze,brake fluid,power steering fluid,transmission fluid,etc etc is a bunch of crap,whatever money you think you save in fuel goes to these "special fluids.jeez 25.00 for a LITRE of power steering fluid come on thats almost a hundred bucks a gallon,does the space station crew brew this special for vw,or maybe it's from the teet's of a rare breed of himilayan yak.then the timing belt every 40,60 and now 100,000 miles,there goes another 600 to a thousand if you can't do it yourself and still almost 400 if you can.i'll agree the fuel tax will be the only way to get people to look for cars with higher mpg's.most town people that are lucky to drive 12,000 miles a year it's just not worth it to have a diesel.if they are just gonna putt around town they might as well have a prius.

Catmanddo, I agree with your closing statement, however the average american drives more than 12000 miles a year! If there were higher fuel taxes, many people would start thinkig about higher mps vehicles, especially if there were not tax breaks from vehicles like the hummer or the escursion. Also, the the exhaust of big rig could be "cleaned up" the perception of diesel would be better! And education is another key element ... diesels might be ditier in terms of what comes out of the tailpipe, but we are not making the wholein the ozone any bigger.

I drive about 30,000 - 40,000 miles a year... and I don't do anything special. Not to mention the extra time sitting in traffic.

bhtooefr said:

The article almost reads like the original author was horribly anti-diesel, and then it went through a pro-diesel editor. (Note the last paragraph.)

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Nah, it's just an old article with a postscript.

bugablue said:

Not to mention messy people who spill diesel all over the nozzle at the filling station. I've seen some people with a box of disposable gloves, because half the filling stations have a diesel covered nozzle. I just wash my hands in the washer fluid after.

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It does seem to be harder to fill up with diesel and not stink afterwards. I think you're right, it's easy to spill and not all diesel buyers care... plus the less-volatile fuel lingers on the nozzle (and pump and pavement) far longer than gas does.

I've always thought it remarkable that self-serve gasoline caught on as quickly and with as little market resistance as it did, but one factor in that is the vapor recovery nozzle -- which is also designed to minimize spillage. You can buy gas on the way to a meeting or party with confidence that you won't show up smelling like a fuel oil delivery driver. Not so, yet, with diesel.

I've bought diesel in Europe but can't offhand recall what the nozzle/station situation is over there... I do remember getting away clean and never seeing nor smelling the fuel. Working toward that is going to be one small part of getting diesel more widely accepted in the USA.

Eddy

tdireader said:

Saw this article on "How stuff works" and had a good chuckle.

No mention of CAFE, EPA, GM Diesels, CARB, etc.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question399.htm

And no mention that a lot of these points have not been true for European diesels for some time (13+ years).

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All I get when I click on that link is either a blank page, or a page with a commercial for Toyota hybrids on the top. No article. I've tried clearing my cache and restarting my browswer, but no joy.

EDIT: Never Mind, got it to work.

I've been filling cars with diesel on and off for almost 30 years and it is sometimes hard to stay clean, but that's one criteria I use for choosing stations. And I remember driving an Olds Cutlass diesel, which, I believe, was based on the 260 V8 in that car. It made my diesel Rabbit feel really fast by comparison.

Catmandoo, I hear what you're saying about the GM cars, but there's a fine line between a car that requires some special treatment and one that's just plain faulty. I'm not saying which side of the line the GM diesels fell on, but in that period GM did have a lot of bad designs. Maybe the diesel just got painted with the same brush.

And regarding fluids for TDIs, they're really not that expensive when you look at their life. Enough G12 to replenish your cooling system is less than $25. Rotella T is about $18 for a gallon and it goes 10K. Filters are cheap. Yes, the timing belt is a big deal, but it also is on a lot of gas cars.