[lazydays]

Gary - you sound like you'd be a cool guy to sit down with a beverage and chat with.
Neat information there. As a service department employee, hybrids, electrics all that stuff scares the hell out of me. I'm glad I'm not the guy turning the wrench anymore. Anything "Non-Conventional" is just a pain in the ass to diagnose/service. Not enough training in the industry for the new radial stuff. And I mean radical stuff by "our" standards. Some of these guys in the shop have been working on cars since before cassette decks were standard. You think THEY are going to be able to adapt to a car driven by an electric motor, or hydrogen?

But the 'techie' in me, loves new technology. Like GM's new skateboard / Hy-Wire chassis. That things cool.  aa
Even the GM "Volt" is pretty cool (Hope it works!)

Bob

Right now all the money's being spent on hybrid electric drives, but there's still a lot of developmental work using hydrogen fuel cells. We're ready for fuel cells, but the actuall manufacturers are not. We've done a lot of work lately on hybrid / electric drive trains, and natural gas fueled deisels. We've got several in use right now, keep in mind this is a learning curve here. The engines are rather small for the aplication, and right now Cummins is the only one that's worth buying. But there's still at least one more new generation of deisels coming out. They'll be much quieter, and will not have the normal foul smell that is associated with them. Watch Honda and Chrysler this fall. Toyota like Ford wants the Cummins six cylinder deisel, but they can't buy it. But they can develope another engine for the same application, but not the one Dodge uses. Maybe built at Walesborough Indiana, but then again that motor maybe installed in the new Chrysler 300. All we know is somebody's going to get into the deisel market in a big way.
     Anybody here ready for the 600 hp. super Corvette yet? Rumor has a $120K price tag.
gary

[Bob in St. Louis]

I'm surprised Mecedes allows Chrysler to continue using the Cummins. Since Benz has thier own diesel, you know.


Regarding the super Vette....Yea, I'm ready. Reasons like that are why I regret leaving the Chevy dealership. The testdrives were fun..... aa
Gotta 'break 'em in right....know what I mean

Check out the Saab concept.  VERY very cool, but would never make it in the real world.

Bob

[lazydays]

I'm surprised Mecedes allows Chrysler to continue using the Cummins. Since Benz has thier own diesel, you know.


Regarding the super Vette....Yea, I'm ready. Reasons like that are why I regret leaving the Chevy dealership. The testdrives were fun..... aa
Gotta 'break 'em in right....know what I mean

Check out the Saab concept.  VERY very cool, but would never make it in the real world.

Bob

The Mercedes deisel is junk compared to the Cummins. Besides, it would look to me like Mercedes would use the Detroit Deisle engines in the U.S. market (they own that company). We had them (and probably still do) on the test stands for quite awhile, and the Cummins out performed them in everyway. The Cats are good, and make lots of power (I mean lots of power). But under heavy load conditions the Cummins is still better, and with the new emissions spec the Cat's not gonna make it. The Duramax has finally got all it's teething problems straitened out, so it seems. Those motors used blow up in less than three weeks on the dyno for the first two years they made them. But the redesigned a lot of stuff on them. The Navastar has had a ton of electrical issues, and we are hearing that Ford is engine shopping if they don't get all
the problems fixed. Dodge had an issue with the timing gears for awhile on the new motor, but seems to be resolved (we never did see this problem at work). But with all these problems the American deisel technology is a light year ahead of anything coming out of Europe, and maybe two light years ahead of anything out of Asia. And those twenty odd test cells don't tell lies. They just send the engines back out on skids ready for the junk pile.
gary

[Bob in St. Louis]

"Teething problems", that's a good description of what they (GM/Isuzu) was going through for awhile.
I had only seen one Duramax replaced (it was in a '02?? maybe) But that guy owned a construction company, and had a horrible PM record with all of his equipment. All of the problems with the Duramax appeared to be related to fuel in one way or another. Especially lack of fuel filter replacement, they seemed to be a little too sensitive in that respect. But good engine/drivetrains from what I found.
When you say American diesels are ahead of Asians, which camp are you including the Duramax?

Surprised to hear the Cummins is that good. I have no dealings with them, just not a big fan of those smoke rollin' noise makers. Kind of a uninformed/biased opinion of mine there to be totally honest.

Bob

[Russell Dawkins]

But with all these problems the American deisel technology is a light year ahead of anything coming out of Europe, and maybe two light years ahead of anything out of Asia.
gary

When you say "anything" coming out of Europe, are you including whatever diesel it is powering this Citroen 7 passenger van (weighing 3564 lb and seating 7) to 119 mph with a zero to 60 of 13 sec., and delivering 49.6 mpg in the process?

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/road_tests/index.htm?id=256

(scroll to end of test)

[Double Ugly]

But with all these problems the American deisel technology is a light year ahead of anything coming out of Europe, and maybe two light years ahead of anything out of Asia.
gary

When you say "anything" coming out of Europe, are you including whatever diesel it is powering this Citroen 7 passenger van ...

Is the diesel you reference "coming out" of Europe, or is it staying put?

I haven't seen a Citroen in years.

[Russell Dawkins]

It's probably staying put. Don't see them in Canada, either, although I can't speak for Quebec.
Citroen seem not to be interested in jumping through the hoops necessary to export to North America
I see in the Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbocharged_Direct_Injection
... that Audi was the first with TDIs (turbo direct injection) in 1989.

My limited understanding of the matter as to why we are not seeing these engines in N America is that the fuel is not quite right for them, or at least that was true until recently.

With Europe's fuel prices, it's not surprising to see this developed there first. From what I read, many of these cars when running these newer-tech diesels exhibit few if any of the characteristics we associate with diesels - dificult starting, noisy idle and running and smelly exhaust.

[lazydays]

"Teething problems", that's a good description of what they (GM/Isuzu) was going through for awhile.
I had only seen one Duramax replaced (it was in a '02?? maybe) But that guy owned a construction company, and had a horrible PM record with all of his equipment. All of the problems with the Duramax appeared to be related to fuel in one way or another. Especially lack of fuel filter replacement, they seemed to be a little too sensitive in that respect. But good engine/drivetrains from what I found.
When you say American diesels are ahead of Asians, which camp are you including the Duramax?

Surprised to hear the Cummins is that good. I have no dealings with them, just not a big fan of those smoke rollin' noise makers. Kind of a uninformed/biased opinion of mine there to be totally honest.

Bob

if you have a Duramax made prior to 2004 it probably has a cracked cylinder head (or is heading that way). They also had a major problem with the head bolts stretching, and even ripping the threads out of the block. The engines we blew up were all massive block failures (we blew up several dozen). The last one actually split right thru the middle. Japs have never made a good deisel engine, and everybody but the bean counters at G.M. knows this. As for catastropic failures in the field, I've seen three let go on the highway. But not in the last two years, so things are getting better there.
Toyota is going to do a deisel, and it will be interesting to see how they go about it.
Deisels tend to eat torque converters like a kid eating a Hersey bar. Are they planning on enfringing on someone's patents? I suspect they'll try to use the Asian transmission out of Japan like Dodge is going to do. This is nothing but a 500 series Allison automatic with a parking brake installed (DOT mandated rule), but knowing Dodge they have a total lock on that transmission's sales. All this will be interesting.
gary

[Dan Banquer]

Hi Bob;
   I checked the tire pressure this weekend and that's O.K. I also bought the Chevron/Techron injector cleaner for about $15.00 at the local auto parts store. At the end of this week when my gas tank is low I will add the injector cleaner and get back to you after a few weeks. I hope I get my fifteen bucks worth.
             d.b.

[lazydays]

But with all these problems the American diesel technology is a light year ahead of anything coming out of Europe, and maybe two light years ahead of anything out of Asia.
gary

When you say "anything" coming out of Europe, are you including whatever diesel it is powering this Citroen 7 passenger van ...

Is the diesel you reference "coming out" of Europe, or is it staying put?

I haven't seen a Citroen in years.

actually was referring to the truck market as well as the RV market. Automobile diesels seem to be dead in Europe right now, but with two or three exceptions. Funny thing is the hot one over there is the Chrysler 300 powered by a Mercedes diesel. And you can't buy the same thing in a Mercedes. If the Europeans adopt the new emissions spec everybody over there will have to come up with completely new designs except for Mercedes automobile engines. Basically it's the CARB spec from California, and it's really tight. That's why Jeep dropped the diesel in the Liberty. The U.S. manufacturers seem to be the only ones making any headway in getting engine packages certified. Cummins is at the forefront, and is tooling up a new engine for cars (maybe Honda or Chrysler).
2007 / 2008 will be a very interesting development cycle in the work of diesel engines.
gary

[lazydays]

"Teething problems", that's a good description of what they (GM/Isuzu) was going through for awhile.
I had only seen one Duramax replaced (it was in a '02?? maybe) But that guy owned a construction company, and had a horrible PM record with all of his equipment. All of the problems with the Duramax appeared to be related to fuel in one way or another. Especially lack of fuel filter replacement, they seemed to be a little too sensitive in that respect. But good engine/drivetrains from what I found.
When you say American diesels are ahead of Asians, which camp are you including the Duramax?

Surprised to hear the Cummins is that good. I have no dealings with them, just not a big fan of those smoke rollin' noise makers. Kind of a uninformed/biased opinion of mine there to be totally honest.

Bob

like I said the Duramax had some severe teething problems, and was rushed into service at least a year too soon. It seems to be doing quite well right now, but how it will fare in the new emission fiasco I don't know. When they ship one to CA, I do know that it takes a 20% hit in power to meet the CARB specs. The Cummins is an old diesel company, and they seem to be the leader. I know we put 786,000 miles on one pulling a
trailer that had a 10,000lb cube of solid concrete on it with out any form of a failure. When we shiped it back to Cummins, and figured the motor was good for at least another 100K miles. It's hard to break one, but we did wear one out once on the dyno! The motor still ran well, but wasn't making any real power. This is the one motor we've never been able to tear up! Cats are great motors that make lots of power, but tend to eat lots of fuel. Can't really tear one of these up either. Eventually all this technology may well find it's way into the sedan we buy at the new car dealership, but of course in a much smaller package. Two companys right now are working day and night on 4.5 litre engines that will fit in half ton pickups and maybe a full sized car.
gary

[Bob in St. Louis]

Dan, drive that car like you stole it!! Run the piss out of it. Blow all the nasties right out of the tailpipe.
(Can't find an appropriate smiley for that one!)

Gary, that one Duramax failure we had was abuse. The cylinder walls had the darkest blue spots I'd ever seen on a piece of metal. Darker than any brake rotor, flywheel, or clutch pressure plate I've ever seen. He "smoked it", plane and simple. The only consistant problems we saw were fuel related. The damn things needed two or three fuel filter added on. Rust and corrosion just packed behind the injectors. Nasty.

Bob

[Folsom]

I have driven a Duarmax and it is a nice rig... They definately need to be taken care of with maintenance regularely. I mean think about it, these things put out HUGE amounts of power, more than any even ten years ago would of ever bargained to see.

Cummins is the lead in power and what not there is just one thing that has bothered me... Dodge's tendency to use crappy transmissions and the bodies on their pickups have been really cheasy (not held together well) since the change to the pre-modern ones before our current style. I am not sure about the current transmissions, but the mid 90s stuff was awful.

[lazydays]

Dan, drive that car like you stole it!! Run the piss out of it. Blow all the nasties right out of the tailpipe.
(Can't find an appropriate smiley for that one!)

Gary, that one Duramax failure we had was abuse. The cylinder walls had the darkest blue spots I'd ever seen on a piece of metal. Darker than any brake rotor, flywheel, or clutch pressure plate I've ever seen. He "smoked it", plane and simple. The only consistant problems we saw were fuel related. The damn things needed two or three fuel filter added on. Rust and corrosion just packed behind the injectors. Nasty.

Bob

sounds to me like he had some antifreeze in the combustion chamber. I'm glad all worked out for him in the end. Nobody deserves a bad car or truck no matter whatkind it is. I looked at a 427 Chevy yesterday at my brother's shop, and the mains must have been .025" out of line!! Never saw one shift that much. Lucky thing for the owner is that it's going in an RV tow truck. Will be nothing but a low speed motor from now on, but it's going tobe a lot of cast iron coming out of that block in the line bore operation. Glad I'm not putting gas in it!
gary

[lazydays]

I have driven a Duarmax and it is a nice rig... They definately need to be taken care of with maintenance regularely. I mean think about it, these things put out HUGE amounts of power, more than any even ten years ago would of ever bargained to see.

Cummins is the lead in power and what not there is just one thing that has bothered me... Dodge's tendency to use crappy transmissions and the bodies on their pickups have been really cheasy (not held together well) since the change to the pre-modern ones before our current style. I am not sure about the current transmissions, but the mid 90s stuff was awful.

Diesels are really hard on torque converters. They'll eat the splines up in no time, and all that crap just flows back into the transmission. There is only one light duty transmission that will for sure hold up the a diesel (there's a lot more to this than just the torque converter by the way). There was another but they discontinued it for a newer product line, and it didn't conform to the DOT rules for 13,000 and lighter trucks.
There is a Jap gearbox thats called an Asian. It's nothing but an Allisson AT542 clone, and somehow they've added a parking brake. How they did it I don't know as the internal parking brake in a heavy duty unit is restricted if they use a mechanical paw.
Anyway from what I've heard is that Dodge will be either using this one or one from ZF designed for a medium duty truck. Either one will hold up just fine assuming they got the torque converter right. But keep one thing in mind here. The AT was never designed to take that kind of power, unless they've really beefed it up. Mercedes is buy LCT 2000 series transmissions like they're going out of style, and it's made to take that kind of power with out the slightest hitch.
    Getting back to Dodge and the automatic transmission failures, a couple years ago they redesigned the torque converters and seem to be ahead of that problem. But new stuff is on the way. As for their bodies, I know lots of folks that have them without the slightest problems. I know a veterinarian that has one, and last I heard she had 736K on it. And she tows large horse trailers all the time. Myself I think the new ones are ugly!
But they are truly a work truck. We had a couple at work, and were astounded at how reliable they were. By the way you ought to drive one of them with the 1240 Ft. lb of torque motor!! I drove one once, as well as one with the 800 ft lb. motor. Still have no idea what anybody with any sanity needs with that kind of power.
gary

[Bob in St. Louis]

Still have no idea what anybody with any sanity needs with that kind of power.

The guys that drive those trucks would probably say the same about our over-glorified "radios" and TV's! 

Bob

[lazydays]

Still have no idea what anybody with any sanity needs with that kind of power.

The guys that drive those trucks would probably say the same about our over-glorified "radios" and TV's! 

Bob

good thought! Mark (the guy with the 1240 ft. lb. Cummins) often has asked me about that. I just tell him that if he wants Hank Williams JR. done right, then he's got to move on up (he's a real Hank JR. fan)!!
gary

[Dan Banquer]

Bob: I filled up last night and put the Chevron Techron fuel additive/cleaner in the tank. The countdown begins!
                d.b.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Ok Dan good.
Now, drive it hard - blow it out!! Drive it until the fuel level is as low as your comfortable (don't run out). Just don't run it down to a half tank and refill it. It'll dilute it too much.
Then fill up to full and remeasure your economy.

If you happen to have the local emission testing facility check your HC/CO/NOX's, don't do it while the cleaner is in the tank.

Bob

[Dan Banquer]

Ok Dan good.
Now, drive it hard - blow it out!! Drive it until the fuel level is as low as your comfortable (don't run out). Just don't run it down to a half tank and refill it. It'll dilute it too much.
Then fill up to full and remeasure your economy.

If you happen to have the local emission testing facility check your HC/CO/NOX's, don't do it while the cleaner is in the tank.

Bob

I usually fill up at when I'm down to 1/4 tank, it must be the old habits of not letting the tank go low in winter for fear of freeze up. I guess that really should not be the case anymore with 10% ethanol?
             d.b.