TDI fans help doom diesel car in US

[gopher52]

I have purchased 6 new diesel Jettas since 2001 model year , as well as 5 new Mercedes diesels and I have driven nothing but diesels since 1975. It is obvious that I love diesels and accordingly am extremely angry and disappointed that VW diesel fans did not support GM when they introduced the excellent and proven diesel Whisper Engine which was available in the 2017-2019 Chevy Cruze sedan and hatchback and the GMC Terrain and Chevy Equinox until the 2019 model year. Granted GM did not properly promoted these diesel vehicles, but any diesel enthusiast such as myself was well aware of these offerings. I purchased a 2019 Cruze diesel sedan with the excellent 9 speed automatic transmission and can definetly state, based on my experience owning a wide range of diesel cars, that this Cruze diesel is the finest and most refined diesel vehicle I have ever purchased, returning a sensational 55mpg on 69 mpg highway trips, and currently have 19,000 trouble free miles on it. In addition, the excellent backup camera, and cross traffic alert, as well as up to date electronics. make it a much better and safer vehicle than the older VWs. Sadly, instead of supporting GM by purchasing these GM diesel offerings, the TDI community supported VW more by purchasing their diesel bybacks, thereby supporting a company that single handedly gravely damaged the diesel vehicle reputation world wide. GM discontinued these diesel offerings after the 2019 model year and VW fans have no one to blame but themselves for this sorry situation. Shame on you.

 

[oilhammer]

I am a Volkswagen fan first, have no interest at all in anything GM has, no matter how it is powered. Sorry. I'd drive a gas Volkswagen before I'd drive a diesel GM vehicle. Heck, I'd drive an ELECTRIC Volkswagen first, LOL.

 

[Rob Mayercik]

Looks like he joined up simply to insult us. Probably just a troll.

 

[VW33]

Most Americans don't buy diesel. Barking up the wrong tree. And I do mean barking

 

[ekincaid]

6 Jettas and 5 Mercedes, as well as a 2019 Cruze, since 2001? Wow. Here I am with my 2003 Golf. Guess I'll stick with what got me here.

 

[alendrew11]

I loved my Jetta TDI wagon. It was expensive to maintain in upstate NY winters and bad roads took their tolls, but it was a pleasure to drive and travel long distances in it......

 

[Lug_Nut]

Did no one else recognize Gopher's irony in bemoaning how VW damaged GM's passenger car diesel opportunity?
It was GM and their diesel passenger car offerings that killed off the US diesel passenger car market 30 to 40 years ago. It took VW decades to get back any semblance of diesel car market share and GM had just a tiny slice of that.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

I test drove a '17 Cruze when they came out. I thought the drivetrain was OK, not stellar. And I couldn't get past the interior design and materials quality, just like I can't with any other GM car. I also have to wonder what it would have been like in 10 years. The OP has 19K on his Cruze: hardly a durability test.

 

[gearheadgrrrl]

I had similar experience, tried a diesel Cruze and was put off by the turbo lag and was too much money for what is basically a cheap car.

 

[BKmetz]

Troll alert. Post at your own risk.

 

[MOGolf]

Maybe GM will have better luck with support now that the Cadillac SUV can be purchased with a diesel engine in 21MY. There's more of a market for SUVs than tiny cars.

 

[kjclow]

I drove a lot a cruise gassers as rental from those model years. That's the main reason that there isn't a diesel cruise sitting in my driveway. I considered the diesel SUV twins but was still not impressed with the overall fit/finish/ride from any of the GM products. Went with the Ram 1500 diesel instead. I refer to is as my cowboy cadillac.

 

[oilhammer]

The Equinox/Terrain roll on the same underpinnings as the Cruze, the only real difference is the availability of an AWD option. But they are on the same platform. The Equinox/Terrain actually got smaller than the previous versions.

But all of this aside, the case against diesels is unfortunately just too strong. Fuel is cheap. The added costs associated with the draconian NOx limits placed upon diesels makes the option itself quite high, and is usually only available in the higher trims anyway. The marketing for them is almost non-existent, aside from the giant trucks, which have themselves become a joke of "mine is bigger than yours" in a race to see whose can be the biggest, ugliest, and craziest and able to tow 11ty million pounds yet they are mostly just driven around empty with useless tiny beds that sit up so high you cannot even lift anything into them anyway. And lets face it: most Americans think 25 MPG is good.

Now with Dieselgate, and VAG's childish "well I'm taking my ball and going home" attitude, we've lost really the only champion of the genre we ever had in this country. Now it is going to be EVs pushed on them. It is quite depressing.

 

[Doug Jr]

I have purchased 6 new diesel Jettas since 2001 model year , as well as 5 new Mercedes diesels and I have driven nothing but diesels since 1975. It is obvious that I love diesels and accordingly am extremely angry and disappointed that VW diesel fans did not support GM when they introduced the excellent and proven diesel Whisper Engine which was available in the 2017-2019 Chevy Cruze sedan and hatchback and the GMC Terrain and Chevy Equinox until the 2019 model year. Granted GM did not properly promoted these diesel vehicles, but any diesel enthusiast such as myself was well aware of these offerings. I purchased a 2019 Cruze diesel sedan with the excellent 9 speed automatic transmission and can definetly state, based on my experience owning a wide range of diesel cars, that this Cruze diesel is the finest and most refined diesel vehicle I have ever purchased, returning a sensational 55mpg on 69 mpg highway trips, and currently have 19,000 trouble free miles on it. In addition, the excellent backup camera, and cross traffic alert, as well as up to date electronics. make it a much better and safer vehicle than the older VWs. Sadly, instead of supporting GM by purchasing these GM diesel offerings, the TDI community supported VW more by purchasing their diesel bybacks, thereby supporting a company that single handedly gravely damaged the diesel vehicle reputation world wide. GM discontinued these diesel offerings after the 2019 model year and VW fans have no one to blame but themselves for this sorry situation. Shame on you.

Government Motors has nothing I'm the least bit interested in owning much less looking into, they should have been forced into bankruptcy & liquidated due to poor quality, egregious mismanagement & federal theft of Billions of tax dollars, buy all you want I won't stand in your way.

 

[gulfcoastguy]

The Equinox/Terrain roll on the same underpinnings as the Cruze, the only real difference is the availability of an AWD option. But they are on the same platform. The Equinox/Terrain actually got smaller than the previous versions.

But all of this aside, the case against diesels is unfortunately just too strong. Fuel is cheap. The added costs associated with the draconian NOx limits placed upon diesels makes the option itself quite high, and is usually only available in the higher trims anyway. The marketing for them is almost non-existent, aside from the giant trucks, which have themselves become a joke of "mine is bigger than yours" in a race to see whose can be the biggest, ugliest, and craziest and able to tow 11ty million pounds yet they are mostly just driven around empty with useless tiny beds that sit up so high you cannot even lift anything into them anyway. And lets face it: most Americans think 25 MPG is good.

Now with Dieselgate, and VAG's childish "well I'm taking my ball and going home" attitude, we've lost really the only champion of the genre we ever had in this country. Now it is going to be EVs pushed on them. It is quite depressing.

Can’t really blame VAG with the massive cost that they had to pay. Though if they had put a decent HPFP in it and used SCR this could have mostly been avoided.

 

[oilhammer]

Many of the vehicles involved in this DID in fact have SCR, and some of those didn't even get a "partial fix" approval and were either left alone or bought back and crushed (CKRA+manual NMS Passats). So it isn't just SCR. And the HPFP has zero to do with emissions compliance.

 

[gulfcoastguy]

Many of the vehicles involved in this DID in fact have SCR, and some of those didn't even get a "partial fix" approval and were either left alone or bought back and crushed (CKRA+manual NMS Passats). So it isn't just SCR. And the HPFP has zero to do with emissions compliance.

Nope but all of the grenaded HPFPs in my county had a hell of a lot to do with how eager I was to take the trade in. It is a lot cheaper to do the design right than to fix it later. It was just cheaper to buy back the small number of manual Passats than to design a fix.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

They designed two fixes for the manual 12-14 Passat but both were rejected by the court.