Why I absolutley despise the modern diesel engine.

[Bailes1992]

So apparently I really like the song 'Good Old-Fasioned Loverboy' by Queen. I actually like it so much I managed to do hoon around the Cotswolds with it on repeat for about 50miles. I can't believe that it came out in 1976, that's 16 years before I was even born, it's actually about the same time car manafacturers starting dropping diesel engines in their passengers cars, and those diesel engines were great too!

So there I am in the middle of the Cotswolds stringing along a few overtakes and flicking through driving modes in my Fathers BMW 320d, there's Eco Mode, Comfort Mode, Sport Mode, Sport+ Mode, Traction Mode and a mode called DTC OFF. I really really like DTC OFF!
The gearbox is absolutley superb! It's an 8 Speed torque converter box but it's as good as any double clutch nonsense that VAG can come up with, then to add to the huge array of driving modes the gearbox also has two forward programes which are 'D' for er... Drive? and 'DS' which is apparently Drive Sport, then you can drive it maually. You can also go into the iDrive and have a good 'ole fiddle with the Shift Verocity control! As far as I can work out that adjusts how hard you'd like to be jerked during changes. Now with a bit of fiddling around you can actually get the gearbox to operate smoothly and fast, you have to put the gearbox in Drive Sport but turn the Shift Verocity right down, but because it's in Drive Sport it refuses to drop into 8th gear unless you max out the engine revs in 7th, to do this you must exceed 135mph.

So what is the 320d? It's £33,000's worth of options. If you own an F30 320d you can garuntee that you spend at least 5-10minutes a day in your car flicking through the iDrive wondering "What can I try today?" And why? What is the point of all these options? Why would you spend £33,000 on a car to spend the rest of the car's life setting it up? And why do you need 8 gears? I managed pretty well with 5 up until I got my Mondeo, and even in my Mondeo I very rarely use 6th.

And while we are on the subject, my Mondeo. Okay it's less complicated and it has the engine from an Escort van but they've slapped a load of expensive common rail nonsense on it and a dual mass flywheel. Then there's the really poorly sized Garret GT17 VNT turbo and if that goes wrong? £1500.
The repair prices scare the living crap out of me! When the clutch fails it's £1000. If the fuel pump fails it's £1000. If the injectors fail it's £1000.
I even have to be carefull with the fuel I put it in. If I fill it up with anything that has a higher bio content than 5% it has an absolute fit!
And if I run out of fuel I'm nackered because Ford decided that even though it has no lift pump it didn't need any methods of priming the fuel system.

Then there's the power band of a modern diesel. Most diesels these days have their power high in the revs. They will pull to around 4500rpm. And why? My old 406 XUD was quite happy shifting up at 2.5k to 3k and still throwing a shed load of torque at me in the next gear.

So the modern diesel. They are expensive to repair, they are full of pointless parts, they are unbelieveably fussy, they aren't very nice to drive and if unsupervised they will eat your children.

Then the EU comes into it. They've decided to add to all this totally uneccesary nonsense what we need is more uneccesary nonense.
So you have your EGR. This works by filling up your intake with a lovely thick layer of soot. Because at the end of the day if you can't get the clean in air in you can't get any dirty air out!
And then there's the DPF which collects soot in the exhaust and burns it off when you are on the motorway. This also works very well because while the car is broken down needing a new and expensive DPF after it's blocked up because some people actually don't go on a motorway it can't produce any CO2 emmisions!
I've had all the emmisions nonsense removed from my Mondeo. When I got it I was getting around 40mpg. Now I'm getting 60mpg+. Thats a 50% improvement. Surley if I'm using 50% less fuel I'll be producing far less emmisions?

So what is my ideal diesel engine?
I want an indirectly and fully mechanically injected diesel. I want ONE timing belt or chain. I want an unbelieveably strong bottom end and an overengineered cooling system. I don't want a CAT or EGR. I don't want a lift pump, I want a hand primer. I want a solid flywheel and 5 gears. It needs to have a smallish turbo to give a low powerband, if it's out of puff at 3,500rpm then great! It needs to be front wheel drive or four wheel drive with a limited slip differential (For the snow ). A cast iron block wouldn't go amiss either. Oh and trust me, 2 valves per cylinder is pleanty.

I don't want to have to think twice about where I fill it up, I would like to be able to run it on alternatives like Veg oil and biodiesel. And if I accidently fill it up with a few litres of petrol then I'd be pleased if it didn't go into limp mode.

What I think I need is another XUD powered 406

[DaiRees]

Indeed.

[waue1978]

Preaching to the choir Sam. Every modern diesel I drive feels like it's been "petrolised" with a narrow power band at the top of the rev range (with the added bonus of being utter sh*te when pulling away from standstill.

It's been going on for years though. My HDi 110 was pretty quick, but not a patch on the 2.1TD 605 that I'd driven a few years prior. Ditto for the HDi 90 engine compared to any 1.9TD 405s or 306s that I'd had a go in. Even the Beemers were the same. Whilst my 530d would happily show a clean pair of heels to most things, my old 325tds felt a lot gutsier all round.

[gumby6371]

Here, here!

I often sit in my car wanting more power than my 1.9 puts out but I'd be hard pushed to find a car I'd rather drive.
It still looks good for something built before my eldest was born and she's just started college.
My very, very limited knowledge of cars still enables me to do most jobs on the car.
38/40 mpg around town which most of my driving is.
Push your foot into the carpet and I'm positive it has way more than 90bhp.
It even has army spec overtaking capabilities...confuse and disorientate with lots of smoke and disappear into the distance.
Throw a few litres of veg in and you have the ideal tailgater deterrent

[dave406]

see i have come from a 1.7dti astra (izuzu lump) to my pug(110) gained 35 bhp but lost a valves and feels slower? mind you i wont bore you with the issues wuth the astra engine fine just the crap they bolt to it

[Ares]

So,you say that older peugeot 406 diesels are better and more reliable than HDI ?

[Welly]

I think diesels are nearing the end of the road for new car manufacturers especially with the ever-increasing Euro regs. I believe VW are going down the 'add blue' route of emission control....

The last 'modern' diesel I drove was a 2010 Fiat Bravo on Holiday, this went like...Nothing, Nothing, Nothing....and then WOOOSH! but that was it a very narrow power band which you had to choose how to use to your advantage. It all made for a tedious and less than smooth drive though. Clearly there remaps around to smooth things out here though.

A modern N/A petrol feels incredibly slow with no torque and completely strangled of power.

Petrol Turbo is the way forward I believe. My car is ridiculous by today's standards i.e. a 5-cylinder 2.5 turbo it *drinks* petrol it dumps petrol it loves the stuff! BUT it drives like a dream there's torque everywhere and you can also drag it out using the bhp right through the revs. Equally it's happy to be pootled around at 1500 rpm. I'd say my kinda set up would suit all but the economy is poor. Having said that there's no scary bills in the future so perhaps overall in the scheme of things I'm not too far out of pocket (if at all).

I think in general a brand-new type diesel will be perfectly fine up to about 60,000 miles and then you should move it on before things get a bit tasty.

[Doggy]

Well, I think our HDi's come from a kind of in-between 'golden age'.
Granted I'm talking remaps / defaps here, but my bro's 110, now pulls really well from 1500 to 4k and is reasonable up beyond 4.5k if you want to complete an overtake. It's averaged 54 mpg over the lst 3k miles.
Some of you have experienced one or other of my 2.2's. It takes something seriously quick, (petrol or diesel), to keep up with it. My bro's is a respectable performer, mine is an order of magnitude faster and has averaged 45 mpg for the last 3.5k miles.
Between these cars and thier predecessors, we've covered over 200k miles in 10 years, with almost no reliability issues. other than service items, the only engine related parts needed have been a swirl flap actuator and a 2nd hand set of injectors.
As welly says N/A petrols are gutless, worse than that, the majority I've driven seem like a collection of flat spots linked by sudden bursts of ragged acceleration. OK, maybe an exageration, but few drive as smoothly and unfussily as a good HDi.
I don't fancy 20 mpg and I cetainly don't fancy a high mileage example of one of these modern tiny, overstressed petrol turbo or turbo/supercharged timebombs.

[Bailes1992]

Petrols are going the same way though.
Direct high pressure injection, VNT turbos, Dual mass flywheels, variable timing, 'clutched' water pumps etc etc.

Cars these days are ridiculously complicated and there's no need! We should be encouraging fully mechanical and reliable engines. They should be designed for longevity and driveability not utmost economy.
I wish I bought a petrol MK4 Mondeo and had it converted to gas, at least there would have been a few things less to worry about.

Diesels aren't refined, they should be noisy and sooty and they shouldn't need more than one wire to run.

[FarmerPug]

I recently drove a 1.9 XUD 406 (its been a while since i drove an XUD) there is no refinement problem with it, and the old engine is more willing to rev than the HDi's,

But i dont mind the HDi 110, there are a few too many sensors but its still simple compared to the newer stuff coming out, a PP2000 will assist with most electrical issues, and a remapped one is great to drive.

[Welly]

Diesels aren't refined, they should be noisy and sooty and they shouldn't need more than one wire to run.

Yeah, there'll be queuing right around the corner to buy one of those we want lots of gadgets, we need fuel economy, they want low emissions so we're f*cked either way.

I've said before these new breed of cars when they get to about 7 years old will not be able to be ran by enthusiastic drivers, on a budget, and who don't mind a bit of tinkering to keep it straight - it just wont be possible.

I don't think cars are made to last more than 7 years, they don't want them to last either as they'll have a newer exciting range that we want to be seen in by then, or much sooner now it seems.

New cars come and go in a flash; companies, hire firms, leasing etc. people like us are seen as a tiny little voice in the corner piping on about DPF's and sensors - they don't care and nothing will change. All you can do is work with what you know and vote with your feet as it were.

[Doggy]

I've said before these new breed of cars when they get to about 7 years old will not be able to be ran by enthusiastic drivers, on a budget, and who don't mind a bit of tinkering to keep it straight - it just wont be possible.

I'm not so sure. Many people would have said the same of HDi's 10-12 years ago, but how many jobs are there that we can't actually handle on them nowadays? I agree the tools and techniques have changed, but if you look at the catalogue of issues ordinary mortals on this forum have mastered, there isn't too much to be scared of. Newer cars will be more sophiosticated still, but don't underestimate the inventiveness and adaptability of us tight-fisted owners.

[KozmoNaut]

As welly says N/A petrols are gutless, worse than that, the majority I've driven seem like a collection of flat spots linked by sudden bursts of ragged acceleration. OK, maybe an exageration, but few drive as smoothly and unfussily as a good HDi.

You obviously haven't driven a good petrol engine, then. Like say an EW12J4 (or ES9J4S) ;-)

Smooth and refined when driving normally, loud-mouthed angry beast when giving it the beans. I rarely have to stray over 2500rpm in normal driving, I may go as high as 4000rpm when merging onto the motorway, and going to 6000rpm is turbo nutter territory.

I disagree that all modern diesels are fussy and too "petrol-like" in their powerbands. I'd much rather drive a modern diesel that has a wider power band than drive an old-school 2-valve diesel that runs out of steam above 3000rpm. For instance, the 206 HDI I had as a courtesy car while my 406 was having its rear bumper replaced. It was gutless and lazy, it felt like it couldn't be bothered. Sure, it jumped off the line with a light touch of the pedal, but that's only because 90% of the throttle map was front-loaded into the first 10% of the pedal's movement. Huge difference to the diesel Panda (4-valve diesel) I used to drive. Same general power and torque as the 206 HDI, but it felt so much more eager and pleasant to drive. Non-turbo diesels are completely out of the question, they're only for agricultural and stationary use, way too little power for their weight.

Old-school turbodiesels feel more "grunty" because they deliver their torque in one lump at once, which feels more powerful. Modern diesels have a much wider powerband, which feels slightly slower, but is actually faster.

And I want to cover the "I'm using 50% less fuel since I removed the emissions controls, so I must be causing less pollution" misconception. It is absolutely not true. The level of particulate pollution from a de-DPF'ed diesel is enormous, as are the NOx levels from a de-EGR'ed diesel. If you remove the emissions controls from your car, you are the cause of smog and lung cancer. It may not affect you directly, but it will have an effect. Yes, I know I'm being dull and boring here, but I like to breathe fresh air, I would like to continue doing so and I would like my grandchildren and my grandchildren's grandchildren to be able to breathe clean fresh air as well.

[KozmoNaut]

Quote != Edit

[steve_earwig]

Quote != Edit

Having trouble there?

Not that I want to add anything here, it's all pretty much been said. However...

You obviously haven't driven a good petrol engine, then. Like say an EW12J4 (or ES9J4S) ;-)

Seriously? How old do you think these engines are (and why do you think they've been phased out?) Even the HDis are just TDs with some fancy stuff bolted on.