Originally Posted by Spike555

They want to sell them here, but there was no market for them.
With cheap gas everyone wanted the big car with lots of room.
Bigger is better mentality.

Remember the late '80's? With the VW Rabbit diesel? And the Olds 88 with the diesel? And the Volvo's with the diesels?
All were noisey underpowered dirty and slow.
Who wants a family car that sounds like a overworked Mack truck?

Now add to that that the EPA put strict emissions standards on light duty diesels, that made it totally un-profitable for the car companies to sell diesels not to mention that nobody wanted to buy them.
Diesels now have particulate filters in the exhaust to catch the soot, these filters need to be changed every 50,000 miles or so.
Pain in the butt for the owner but better for the environment.
Ultra low sulfur diesel was really bad for the injectors, kinda like running leaded gas in a unleaded car.
Now all diesels can run on ultra low sulfur diesel.

BMW, Mercedes, VW are all bringing diesels into the US now, as fuel prices soar and clean diesel technology gets better the cars are no longer "boring, noisey and dirty"

I'm sure you have seen this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2AdcX5dgE0

This will bring diesel to the fore front for America.

Originally Posted by ngarover

Ya, the w123 owners are pretty pisses about them making fun of the MB. Even my 2 basically unmaintained with over 200k on the clock don't smoke. IT was pretty ballsy of BMW to make fun for a car with the reliability history of the om617 engine. With 200k on mine I would drive them across county without second thought.

"World record on the highest mileage car on planet earth. Of course a Mercedes Benz!.A greek taxi driver holds the record with a 1976 240 diesel with an outstanding 2,852,000 miles.How about a couple from Orange county California with a 1970 280se that they bought new and put 1,019,000 miles on it.They donated it to a Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart Germany and were offered a new clk 320 cabriolet in 2005 in exchange for the 280se."

Originally Posted by Spike555

I am not knocking diesels at all, all I am saying that there was no market for them here in the US.
When you mention diesel to the average person what do they think of?
Mack, Kenworth etc. belching black smoke and making tons of noise.
I wish we would go the route of Europe, premium gas and diesel and diesel engines as a option in all cars sold here.
I think we are on our way but we still have a long way to go.