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04-17-2006, 13:17
Published April 13, 2006
Steven Cole Smith
Orlando Sentinel
An item in this week's Automotive News was a bit of an eye-catcher: Apparently the diesel version of the Jeep Liberty sport ute "seems to have passed its U.S. marketing test," the story said. "Chrysler says it sold 10,313 diesel-powered Libertys in the vehicle's first full year on the market -- roughly double its target figure.
"Chrysler spokesman Jason Vines said the company felt the Liberty CRD would sell well despite diesel's image problem in the United States. In the late 1970s, General Motors rushed diesels into production with disastrous results that still resonate in the marketplace," the story continued. " 'There's a whole generation of adults who think diesels are noisy, smelly . . . and they have influenced their children's buying habits,' Vines said."
What makes this especially interesting is that the diesel version of the Jeep Liberty is, well, certainly noisy. Despite all the wonderful diesels Mercedes-Benz builds, Chrysler's parent, DaimlerChrysler, chose a cobby, loud, rattling 2.8-liter, four-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine built in Italy. Mileage, EPA-rated at 21 miles per gallon city, 26 highway, is unexceptional. Horsepower, at 160, is modest. Wrote a colleague: "It's not an engine, so much as a gem tumbler." Ouch.
Even so, it's a diesel, and in the Liberty, it works reasonably well. At the outset, Jeep executives said they'd be happy with 5,000 sales, and even with an engine that is substantially less than state of the art, they doubled that.
And the Liberty Diesel isn't cheap. To the Liberty Sport package, the diesel and the required optional equipment add a minimum of $3,055 to the base price of the V-6 model. The regular 3.7-liter, 210-horsepower V-6 is rated at 17 mpg city, 22 highway, and because diesel fuel is more expensive than regular gas, it's unlikely Liberty diesel owners will feel any sort of benefit in the pocketbook, immediate or otherwise.
So here's the bottom line: A less-than-perfect diesel package in a good little SUV sells at a rate more than double company projections. You know what this should tell the industry? That a segment of the auto-buying population, including me, wants diesels.
In small cars such as the Toyota Yaris and Honda Fit, clean, smooth-running little turbodiesels could deliver hybridlike fuel economy, with above-adequate acceleration. In a car the size of a Ford Crown Victoria, a diesel could get you the mileage of a Ford Focus. A new generation of diesel fuel will be arriving shortly, and coupled with breakthroughs in diesel technology, the cars will rival gas engines in cleanliness.
The Europeans are begging to bring us diesels that use urea injection that would further clean the exhaust. Urea injection uses a chemical that, as the name suggests, is similar to urine. Tiny amounts of urea injected into the engine, from a tank aboard the car, scrub the exhaust. But when the urea tank runs dry, the engine runs just as well, but pollutes more. The federal government insists that Americans would run the urea tank dry, and simply not bother to have it refilled. The simple solution is to have a flashing dash light and a buzzer, similar to those that insist you buckle your seat belt, go off when the tank runs dry. Link it to the ignition so you can't disable the light and buzzer, and people will have the tank refilled as required, which could be as seldom as every 12,000 miles.
And bingo: We're driving cars that get 40 or 50 mpg, and we are saving money and oil. This is why half of the European market -- 70 percent in some places -- is diesel.
Diesels are here from VW, Mercedes and Jeep, and more are coming, but not fast enough. It would be wise for the Bush administration to help grease the path for diesel engines to come to the United States.
Right now.
Steven Cole Smith
Orlando Sentinel
An item in this week's Automotive News was a bit of an eye-catcher: Apparently the diesel version of the Jeep Liberty sport ute "seems to have passed its U.S. marketing test," the story said. "Chrysler says it sold 10,313 diesel-powered Libertys in the vehicle's first full year on the market -- roughly double its target figure.
"Chrysler spokesman Jason Vines said the company felt the Liberty CRD would sell well despite diesel's image problem in the United States. In the late 1970s, General Motors rushed diesels into production with disastrous results that still resonate in the marketplace," the story continued. " 'There's a whole generation of adults who think diesels are noisy, smelly . . . and they have influenced their children's buying habits,' Vines said."
What makes this especially interesting is that the diesel version of the Jeep Liberty is, well, certainly noisy. Despite all the wonderful diesels Mercedes-Benz builds, Chrysler's parent, DaimlerChrysler, chose a cobby, loud, rattling 2.8-liter, four-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine built in Italy. Mileage, EPA-rated at 21 miles per gallon city, 26 highway, is unexceptional. Horsepower, at 160, is modest. Wrote a colleague: "It's not an engine, so much as a gem tumbler." Ouch.
Even so, it's a diesel, and in the Liberty, it works reasonably well. At the outset, Jeep executives said they'd be happy with 5,000 sales, and even with an engine that is substantially less than state of the art, they doubled that.
And the Liberty Diesel isn't cheap. To the Liberty Sport package, the diesel and the required optional equipment add a minimum of $3,055 to the base price of the V-6 model. The regular 3.7-liter, 210-horsepower V-6 is rated at 17 mpg city, 22 highway, and because diesel fuel is more expensive than regular gas, it's unlikely Liberty diesel owners will feel any sort of benefit in the pocketbook, immediate or otherwise.
So here's the bottom line: A less-than-perfect diesel package in a good little SUV sells at a rate more than double company projections. You know what this should tell the industry? That a segment of the auto-buying population, including me, wants diesels.
In small cars such as the Toyota Yaris and Honda Fit, clean, smooth-running little turbodiesels could deliver hybridlike fuel economy, with above-adequate acceleration. In a car the size of a Ford Crown Victoria, a diesel could get you the mileage of a Ford Focus. A new generation of diesel fuel will be arriving shortly, and coupled with breakthroughs in diesel technology, the cars will rival gas engines in cleanliness.
The Europeans are begging to bring us diesels that use urea injection that would further clean the exhaust. Urea injection uses a chemical that, as the name suggests, is similar to urine. Tiny amounts of urea injected into the engine, from a tank aboard the car, scrub the exhaust. But when the urea tank runs dry, the engine runs just as well, but pollutes more. The federal government insists that Americans would run the urea tank dry, and simply not bother to have it refilled. The simple solution is to have a flashing dash light and a buzzer, similar to those that insist you buckle your seat belt, go off when the tank runs dry. Link it to the ignition so you can't disable the light and buzzer, and people will have the tank refilled as required, which could be as seldom as every 12,000 miles.
And bingo: We're driving cars that get 40 or 50 mpg, and we are saving money and oil. This is why half of the European market -- 70 percent in some places -- is diesel.
Diesels are here from VW, Mercedes and Jeep, and more are coming, but not fast enough. It would be wise for the Bush administration to help grease the path for diesel engines to come to the United States.
Right now.