highly, HIGHLY, recommend the Pirelli at plus tires. They ride so good. Amazing

 

I’ve been browsing all 2020 diesels and there are any barely in the US. Why?

 

My dealer only special orders them for the most part.

I would imagine most people in the US buy diesels for towing and given the tow rating on gas and diesel Discos is the same there is no need. Yes the diesel will likely tow better as a driving experience but unless you do a lot of towing can you really justify spending an extra $2k(?) which although cheap for a disease upgrade doesn’t financially add up when looking at gas and diesel prices? How many miles would it take to get that investment back? Also there tend to be fewer diesel pumps at US fuel stations so it’s not convenient.
Granted it has a lot more range from a tank but with plentiful fuel stations how much of a day to day benefit is that? Again, more useful for long distance towing.
Throw in the additional complexity of a Diesel engine with its expensive parts (although with direct injection petrol that may now be even) and the fact that there seems to be more reported issues with Diesel engines than the 3.0SC, plus the VW diesel scandal in the back of the mind, is there really much demand for them here? Especially when people buying new luxury vehicles probably don’t care much about fuel economy anyway (which again goes back to my comment in doing the math on how many miles it takes to break even).
They also take longer to warm up, are a bad buy for people who only make short sub 15 minute trips mostly, and diesel doesn’t like extreme cold which matters to some states.
I’m not saying they’re a bad idea, I’m just suggesting this may be why dealers aren’t stocking them.

 

there have been more problems with the diesel? I would have thought just by its nature it would be more rugged and last longer.

 

IMO, it goes back to the VW dieselgate fallout and is rich in politics and those who have a vested interest in the advancement of EV's. The Obama administration tried hard to advance electric vehicles (EV's,) in the eight years he was in office (ex. Solyndra,) and one of the biggest opponents to EV's were successful light-duty/passenger diesel. When a group of students from West Virginia University got together and pointed out that the VW diesels were emitting more NOx as the RPM's increased, they exposed a flaw in the way the EPA was testing and not surprisingly, caught with their pants down, they went full bore into VW. You've heard the term they coined called "emission defeat device?" Yeah, that's your ECU.

VW programmed the ECU's to pass the EPA's test (at idle); imagine that - study to pass the test, how "American." The amount of DEF injected into the exhaust can greatly impact the measured NOx levels at the tailpipes and this like many parameters in your vehicle's engine is metered by your ECU. It's kind of a joke because recent studies have shown DI gasoline engines might be putting out more NOx than modern clean-burning diesels with the latest in SCR (DPF and DEF.) You have to remember, VW was the biggest player in light-duty/passenger diesel at the time in the US and as long as people were happy with them, EV's face an even greater obstacle to further their market share. I've owned a number of diesel vehicles including VW TDI's, and they were very well built and fun to drive. Excellent low-end grunt and very reliable (other than the emissions crap which has been refined since it first started to be used.)

But you have to ask yourself, why is the Federal tax on diesel greater than the tax on gasoline? Because nearly everything we consume is delivered by diesel, (diesel trucks to diesel locomotives.) The bigger hoax is the premise of everyone tooling around in an EV as if they have no impact on the environment. Modern turbocharged diesels that get upwards of 30% greater fuel economy and have gobs of torque at low RPM's, where most people drive (especially big SUV's,) are far more practical than the feasibility of an EV on a short leash. 300+ miles or so and then you have to stop and recharge for 6 to 8 hours minimum. Want to tow something? Maybe 100 miles.

This is why I found the Discovery when I did. I was looking for a diesel powered four-wheel drive SUV. I had a Jeep Grand Cherokee EcoDiesel (4x4 Summit) but sold it for a 6.2L V8 Yukon Denali because I wanted a little more room for our two kids. The Yukon has been great, but with those that be pushing EV's as they are, and automakers like VW (Audi is owned by VW) pulling out all their diesel in the US, I almost wanted a diesel just to thumb my nose as the EV push. GM is also trying to advance and push more EV's despite their previous EV's having a hard time selling even with significant Federal tax credits, but I want nothing to do with an EV. (Am interested in new Tahoe/Yukon diesel but they won't be available in the off-road variants.)

Mercedes pulled the expensive CARB and EPA certification of diesel passenger vehicles in 2018, and BMW followed suit even though they still build a quad-turbo diesel X5 in South Carolina for consumption overseas. Trying to push laws that take effect in as little as 12 years (Boris in England) forbidding the sale of any new petrol or diesel vehicle is insane. The technology isn't there and there is no reason to believe obstacles such as energy density of batteries will be solved by then. I wanted to get back into a vehicle with a serious off-road capability powered by a diesel motor before the Government all but eliminated them. I'm in my early 40's and I've grown up with batteries all my life. They don't last and need to be recharged, and I surely am not going to bet my life on them. My laptop gets nice and warm when it's being used or being recharged, how do we think EV's are going to hold up in the Summers here in Central Texas? Or maybe even worse, in the areas of the world where it snows?

 

That’s not what they did.

They programmed the ECU to detect the test (which is not done just at idle) by seeing if (in the case of front wheel drive) the front wheels were turning but the rear wheels were not (which signifies it’s in rollers not the road) AND the airbag has been deactivated (which they do for the test, not sure why). If so the ECU realises the car is being tested and switches to different behavior. I don’t know if they pulled GPS data as well (some bad apps tried doing this to circumvent Apples testing for safe apps to be allowed into the App Store) but regardless the car is now not running as it does when you drive it, because you wouldn’t like the way the engine performs in this mode. That’s not studying to pass the test, where you make sure it runs as well at possible at say 55mph, this is blatant cheating. And that’s why they had the book thrown at them.

 

Diesels today are not the diesels of the 80s.
Back then they were simple so there wasn’t much to go wrong and the blocks were thick and everything heavy duty to withstand the pressures from compression ignition. But they were also low powered.

They added turbo charging and fuel injection along with an ECU to most of them in the 90s and that resulted in more power, but more complex and expensive components (like the turbo and injectors) and more pressure on the engine but the latter wasn’t really an issue.

Where diesels really got powerful and fun to drive was when they went to direct injection. In this case the injectors fire directly into the cylinder instead of the back of the valve. This means they need to withstand the heat and pressure of combustion, they also have as fine a spray pattern as possible for better atomization which means they are produced in clean room facilities (think Intel chip guys in those funny protective suits) and the fuel pump operates at 2500psi, over 60 times the pressure in your tires.

Once you lose the simplicity of a diesel the traditional arguments of reliability go out if the window and repair costs soar. Now, gasoline engines have also followed and switched to direct injection and turbos on smaller engines, so they’re just as likely to have issues. But the key thing is, just as likely. Diesel has lost its advantage of simple long life dependability.

The only reason to buy a diesel is if you do a *lot* of miles and it will save you money, or you want the low rpm torque for pulling a heavy trailer. Fuel consumption also rockets up when towing so on a like for like tank size the diesel will go further between fillips which is especially useful when towing and frequent fillups are the norm.

There are specific good reasons to buy a diesel, but if they don’t apply to you, I’d suggest it makes no sense to do so.

 

It's all relative to how you look at it, but I suspected it was a little more blatant than what I understood it as, as you described. Still, the bigger picture remains the same. Arbitrary levels imposed by legislators mandating to the industry without regard as to what is even technically feasible, let alone profitable. Example: Unrealistic average fuel economies, CAFE, etc. The fact remains that the 2012 TDI Touareg I use to own (that VW was forced to buyback,) was a nearly 5,000lbs SUV that got nearly 30 mpg on the highway, which was upwards of 30% greater fuel economy than the comparable gasoline-powered variants. The SCR in these vehicles were all still equipped, and none of these TDI's were emitting any of that black exhaust most people commonly associate with a diesel. I fail to see how the VW TDI's were harming the environment and that's why I have such a skeptical perspective on the whole diesel vs EV, or hell, it's almost coming down to all ICE vs EV in England and Europe.

 

I agree that they need to keep the big picture in mind, diesels and different engine types have a purpose. One size does not fit all. For larger vehicles and especially with towing it makes a lot of sense to have a diesel. I deliberately steered clear of a diesel and got the Si6 as it is my wife's daily and she does a lot of very short trips, not ideal for new diesel emission systems. For a commuter vehicles in metro areas EVs make a lot of sense, but I don't see that technology being ready for long haul and heavy workloads where diesels tend to shine.

Besides local, state and fed gov will cry when they start loosing the revenue form taxes on fossil fuels. Pushing all EV will mean they have to tax something else.

 

I did the same with my Si6 D5 for the same reasons.

Currently the wife’s small car is gasoline but in the new house we intend to install EV charging and we’ll switch her to an EV. I’ll stick with my larger gas D5 for longer trips and use her EV for local trips when she’s not using it.