Mazda 6 Diesel: 43 MPG Highway?

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Mazda's CEO is telling The Detroit News that its new diesel engine will get hybrid-like numbers "without any electrification." 

As in 43 MPG highway in the 2012 Mazda 6.

Full story here.

Post Title → Mazda 6 Diesel: 43 MPG Highway?

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BMW Diesel 6 To Power Carbon Motors' Police Car

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Just ten days after Ford took the wraps off its new Taurus-based police vehicle, Carbon Motors, which says it will make only one car...the E7, and only for the police market, beginning in 2012, now says it'll be powered by a BMW diesel 6-cylinder engine.  Carbon will also be fighting Chevrolet's revived Caprice police cruiser.   Details from NASDAQ here.

Post Title → BMW Diesel 6 To Power Carbon Motors' Police Car

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Dodge Ram 3500 Laramie Crew Cab Review

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What you see is the new Dodge Ram 3500 Laramie Crew Cab in its natural environment. The 3500 is a one-ton pickup...the kind of thing best suited for hauling huge horse trailers (or Brahma bull trailers) around. The ideal rodeo vehicle.

In fact, I would have said that the market for this was pretty well limited to the horses for business and/or pleasure set until I drove it.

You see, as civilized as trucks have become over the years, there's a sliding scale and it has to do with towing/hauling capacity and heavy duty status.  It applies across Chevy, Ford, GMC and Dodge pickups. A 1500 is a half-ton pickup...light duty. These have become pretty comfy cruisers.

2500? That's a 3/4-ton. Now we're on the entry end of heavy duty...you climb up to get in and you'd better hang on, because the ride is usually noticeably rougher than the 1500.

And the 3500? Well, unless you're going commercial hauling, that's the big boy. One ton, riding high and....well, like a truck.

It's tough to tame a one-ton, but somehow, Dodge has done it. The 3500 Laramie Crew Cab I drove for a week was not only luxurious, but actually comfortable to drive. Parking? Not so much. I've had smaller apartments.

The key to the livability here seems to be the Laramie trim level. You can get a 3500 for as little as $35,630, but it's a 2-door, bare bones beast. At the base ST trim, a Crew Cab like ours begins at $39,200.

So pop an extra $10,745 (total base $49,945) into the calculator and the transformation is amazing. Suddenly, leather trimmed bucket seats are part of the package, along with heated second row seats, ventilated front seats, an AM/FM/Sirius/CD/mp3/DVD audio system (506 watt Alpine Premium Sound with 9 speakers and a subwoofer), 17 inch aluminum wheels and a bunch of brightwork to make it look...can you say this about a one-ton?....pretty.

The beautification continued on our tester with extra-cost paint...the Deep Water Blue Pearl Coat adds $225 to the sticker...and by the time the Dodge PR deparment finished with the six-speed automatic transmission, power sunroof, a further upgraded audio system (with a 30 gig hard drive and navigation) and Sirius Backseat TV, the price (with destination charge) was $56,820.

Now, that, cowboys and cowgirls, is steep...but it's a testament to just how good the all-new Ram 3500 is that at no point did I think it wasn't worth it.  And a big part of that is the engine. The 6.7 liter Cummins Turbo Diesel engine is a marvel...quiet, smooth and powerful. 350 horsepower, but as always with diesel, the story is in the torque...and it's very nearly impossible to beat 650 pounds per foot of torque at just 1,500 RPM.

The word is that the 2011 Ford Super Duty is an amazing truck. It needs to be. Until it arrives, the Dodge Ram 3500 is king of the mountain.

Post Title → Dodge Ram 3500 Laramie Crew Cab Review

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Volkswagen Jetta TDI Review

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A lifetime of exposure to noisy, smelly city buses and 18-wheelers (not to mention passenger cars of the 70s and 80s) has given diesel a bad reputation.

Time to shake that once and for all. And a great way to do that is with a drive in a Volkswagen Jetta TDI.

TDI is Volkswagen's clean diesel engine...a terrific marriage of ultra-low sulfur fuel and a technology that burns fuel so efficiently, there's very little waste.

Kneel down by the tailpipe of a running TDI and there's no diesel odor whatsoever.

The 140 horsepower made by the 2-liter four-cylinder engine isn't a world-beater, but diesels are all about torque...and the TDI makes 236 pounds per foot of it...it's a cliche, but it really does pull like a locomotive.



Inside, the Jetta TDI is all business, no frills...but not cheap or austere. Everything is logically placed, falls easily to hand, and moves with a solid, high-quality feel.

The big payoff here is mileage. The EPA says 29 city, 40 highway...and we managed 42 and a half in a week of 50/50 urban freeways and surface streets, which makes it as good as our real-world experience with both the new Honda Insight and the Mercury Milan Hybrid.

Where the Jetta TDI pulls ahead is in the value equation. $22,830 base price (our tester had a six-speed automatic for $1,100 and a sunroof for $1,000...which, after destination charges, put the bottom line at $25,640.) and diesel longevity...250,000 miles is equivalent to 100,000 miles or less in a gasoline engine. 400,000 miles or more is not uncommon.

It doesn't scream "hey, look at me, I'm saving the planet!" the way Toyota Priuses (Prii?) and Insights do...it just gets the job done...and there's a very good chance it will be doing that job a lot longer. The Jetta TDI earns its place not only on TireKicker's Top Ten Fuel Savers, but also on TireKicker's Top 20 Cars.

Post Title → Volkswagen Jetta TDI Review

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BMW X5 xDrive35d Review

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Diesel rules. Just not here in the USA. But BMW's working to change that.

A great way to make the case for diesel's economy and lower emissions is to put it in an SUV.

The X5 xDrive35d (that's the name, folks) is one of the new generation of clean diesels...odorless, largely noiseless, with good performance from a V6 making 265 horsepower and tons of torque.

The EPA says 26 miles per gallon on the highway...which is five mpg better than the X5 3.0 6-cylinder gasoline engine...rated at 260 horsepower. And the price premium to step up to the diesel is less than $4,000. But that does put the base price a shade above $50,000...which seems to be a major psychological price point in the new reality.

I had the tester for a week and a half and it was flawless...a great drive...and the diesel engine is a great match for the x5's size and weight...that strong, linear power delivery imparting an extra sense of solidity to the vehicle. And there's the knowledge that diesel engines are routinely capable of 250,000, 500,000 and more miles in a lifetime.

Apart from large, mainly 3/4 ton and 1 ton American trucks, it's the Germans who are carrying the flag on diesel. They're not wrong.

Post Title → BMW X5 xDrive35d Review

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Mercedes-Benz ML 320 BlueTec Review

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Noise? No.

Smell? No.

Slow acceleration? No.

Trouble passing emissions? No.

Must not be a diesel, right? Think again. Mercedes-Benz new BlueTec has done what a lot of people said was impossible just a few short years ago...passed tough new emissions testing in all 50 states without substantial and expensive reformulation of diesel fuel.

How clean is it? Well, I stood by the tailpipe of our idling ML320 test car last week and couldn't detect a trace of diesel smell.

Those tough regulations have kept many diesels off the U.S. market for the past few years. A shame, too, since diesels have huge benefits including great fuel economy and long engine life.

If you've avoided diesels like the plague since the dark days of the 1980s, when smell, slug-like 0-60 times and (in the case of GM diesels) questionable reliability were the norm, the ML320 BlueTec would be a perfect introduction to the state of the art. First, there's no waiting for the glow plugs to heat up to start (that one's been gone for a decade or more), neither the inside nor the outside of the ML320 BlueTec smells like a city bus pulling away from a stop, it doesn't clatter like diesels used to and it performs much like a gasoline-powered engine...but with multiples of torque and miles per gallon.

A gasoline-powered ML320 is probably a 16-mile per gallon vehicle in the city. The BlueTec version we tested did 23 and a half. The trip computer showed 550 miles range when we started...and it actually crept close to 600 on the freeway. Yes, diesel fuel costs more than gasoline these days, but the difference in economy tips the scale in the BlueTec's favor.

And then there's longevity. Mercedes' gasoline engines are well-engineered...200,000 miles with proper maintenance should be no sweat. A Mercedes diesel? 400,000 or 500,000 is more like it. And there are million-mile examples out there.

If you're shopping for a luxury mid-size SUV but want clean air, better mileage and a long-term payoff on your investment, the ML320 BlueTec makes a very strong case for itself.

Post Title → Mercedes-Benz ML 320 BlueTec Review

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