2018 equinox diesel

Tin Man

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Nov 18, 2001
Location
Coastal Empire
TDI
Daughter's: 2004 NB TDI PD GLS DSG (gone to pasture)
All I can say is we are royally pleased with my wife's Jaguar XE 2.0d. She pushes 50 mpg easily and it has a cat-like growl from the engine to say the least.
 

Tin Man

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Nov 18, 2001
Location
Coastal Empire
TDI
Daughter's: 2004 NB TDI PD GLS DSG (gone to pasture)
Yes and no. We all now this but I'm restating it here.

Distillate fuels are all high in surfactants which are mostly bound to sulfur. This makes them a great lubricant. However, ultra low sulfur fuels are hydrotreated to remove the sulfur. This also results in removing most of the surfactants. Without added surfactants, ULSD would trash our HPFPs in probably the first tank, much the same as trying to run gasoline through them. Balancing the lubrication properties with additives is entirely dependent on the specific tank farm and end customer. Easy to screw up if one of the additive tanks is empty or contaminated. This might be one of the reasons we saw so many early HPFP failures.
It would be interesting to know what the "lubricity" of gasoline is in the HFRR test which I would wager is far worse than ULSD of any kind.
 

tikal

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2001
Location
Southeast Texas
TDI
2004 Passat Wagon (chainless + 5 MT + GDE tune)
Bringing this thread back to life as now I am starting to look more in detail at used Equinox diesels to purchase one:


Any other feedback of current and former owners would be appreciated. The decision was tilted in favor of the Equinox vs the 2014 Jetta Sportswagen because of a more generous back seat leg room.
 

ilyago

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 14, 1999
Location
Chatham, NJ, USA
TDI
2015 Jetta S DSG
As a past 2018 GMC Terrain Diesel owner, I would not recommend it. The 1.6L engine is way too small for this vehicle. There's just not enough power to get it going quickly enough and the high revs at high speeds really bring down the mileage. The engine would probably be OK in a much smaller and lighter Chevy Cruze that's also front wheel drive. They should have kept the 2.0L diesel for the SUVs.
 

eli

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2002
Location
I-95
TDI
2017 Cruze stickshift 2019 Terrain
First for the GM-h8rs, veer off now because there are GM stories below.
Also my lawyer team (Hans and Franz) advise me to stipulate for the record that I'd buy a VW diesel again in 2 seconds if VAG had the nadsnerhugen to make them.

The 1.6L "whisper diesel" is plenty for the terrain including for highway uphill passing.
("Whisper" is a 100% ironic aspect of the engine name, of course.)

The 1.6L diesel is better than the gas 4 cylinder in countless ways. Maybe the rare 6 cylinder motor can pull harder, not sure.

As for MPG at highspeed, be serious, the vehicle is as aerodynamic as a brick. Drive more slowly and in the right lane if you want better mpg. The vehicle is excellent at highspeed by the way but of course has no chance of handling like a Cayenne Turbo or Macan-clubsport-GT or X3-M-whatever.

The 1.6L is not as zippy as in the cruze with stickshift but in both vehicles you gotta drive using torque not horsepower. Terrain transmission seems tuned accordingly, or maybe it has learned accordingly from my right foot. The first gear for both vehicles is super super LOOOOOW intentionally due to torque-curve and as annoying to stoplight-tailgators same as any diesel. The cruze 1.6L stickshift ratio spacing is also very weird compared to gasser ratio spacing - this is to match the torque cruve. The cruze diesel first gear seems absurdly short but is needed for start-from-stop, 2nd is too tall for 2nd-gear-start.

Another advantage of the diesel Terrain over gas model is the older-school/less-troublesome slushbox 6 speed automatic instead of the wacky 9-speed electronic transmission.

Btw if you happen to have a diesel stickshift cruze, sell it just before the flywheel or secondary-cylinder fails. :| My cruze had secondary clutch cylinder fail around 68k miles. Some owners sad them fail under warranty, GM replaced some beyond the 12k new-car-warranty period. Cruze has transverse engine and clutch replacement was $3400, at dealership. Clutch failed a week before i was to drive the car from NH to FL, pedal sank to floor 1/10 of a mile from entrance to Chevy dealership, drove the car using starter & engine & 1st gear, driving in circles around the dealership until a dedicated employee ran next to the car (in snow!) and told me where to let it die.

In 1991 similar thing happened to My 1989 camaro IRAQ-Z, pedal sank to floor at/blocking the entrance-gate to sunnyvale chevrolet dealersh. Mr Goodwrench walked out from the service bays and showed me how to drive a stickshift vehicle a few hundred feet using battery alone, ignition never firing, pausing 30 seconds to let starter cool each time, without ever letting the ignition fire up.
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
Joined
Dec 11, 2001
Location
outside St Louis, MO
TDI
There are just too many to list....
Just FYI, the same Equinox that got the 1.6L diesel only got turbo gas engines as options (a 1.5L or a 2.0L, later they dropped the 2.0L and the diesel, now they are all just the 1.5L turbo gas). There were no 6cyl versions (the previous Equinox did, but that was a larger and completely different platform).

We service a LOT of the 2019-21 1.5L Equinox as one of our medical courier fleets has a bunch of them. And I have to say, they've done quite well, far better than the horrid 1.4L turbo Trax they also have used (junk, junk, JUNK).

I've never noticed the 9sp automatic as being poorly behaved. The stop/start nonsense would make me want to burn it to the ground, however.

$3400 for a clutch .... wow, I hope you got a kiss. They either had an astronomical labor rate or gold plated the parts.
 
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kjclow

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Apr 26, 2003
Location
Charlotte, NC
TDI
2010 JSW TDI silver and black. 2017 Ram Ecodiesel dark red with brown and beige interior.
Neither, they just put a bowtie on it!
 

eli

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2002
Location
I-95
TDI
2017 Cruze stickshift 2019 Terrain
Clutch job for the cruze seemed to be in similar price range as other city folk who had to have broken clutch swapped outside warranty.

A decade earlier it cost $3800 for 2005 GTO clutch (also required a new transmission input shaft for $782, no gold plating there either).

Inbetween there was eldest son's 2004 lancer that needed new clutch so he could immediately total it.

Oilhamsta, I'll bring you my next broken cruze clutch or maybe a chevy-ss-sedan clutch (100k on factory brakes, so maybe the clutch will last long too, i'm getting suspicious of the secondary cylinder failing soon, might see about swapping it preemptively).
Please would fix my cars' clutches with the no-kiss option?! I will pay double for no kissing or hugging except maybe a group-hug.

Start/stop sure is annoying.
But, my observation after is that the start/stop in the diesel terrain is OK because it should reduce regens?
Also the start/stop will hopefully extend the life of the multiple NoX sensors - expensive and time consuming to recalibrate. What do you think?
 
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