35 Mpg Now!

[MoparNorm]

From MPGOmatic.com
March 15, 2008

One of the keys to restarting the American economy is staring us in the face. While our future hinges on the rapid adoption of fuel-efficient vehicles, our government stands in the way of a rapid free market solution.



35 MPG can be an immediate reality, with one domestic manufacturer, if the United States government would only allow it to happen. Our elected representatives need to be aware of the facts and make the appropriate decisions.

Chrysler is uniquely positioned among the Big Three US automakers. Unlike Ford and General Motors, Chrysler is already building a slew of high-MPG diesel-powered vehicles right here in the United States.

Amazing as it may seem in these difficult times, Chrysler is not allowed to sell those cars domestically, due to recently tightened emissions regulations. With the exception of the domestically-available Jeep Grand Cherokee diesel, all of Chrysler’s North American manufactured high-MPG diesel-equipped vehicles are being shipped abroad.

Each and every one of Chrysler’s European models is available with a diesel engine, with the exception of the Dodge Viper. In fact, a diesel engine can be found under the hood of more than 50% of the vehicles that Chrysler sells in Europe.

All-in-all, a dozen Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep diesel-engined models are currently available outside of the United States, but are not sold domestically.

Here’s the eye-opener … half of those models currently achieve 35 miles per gallon combined.

That’s 35 MPG … right now.

And what’s even more crazy? All of these 35 MPG cars and SUVs are built in North American plants by North American workers … American citizens cannot buy and drive the fuel-efficient cars they build.

The thriftiest of the bunch delivers nearly 50 MPG on the highway … and it’s no dog off the line, turning in 0-62 mile per hour (MPH) times under nine seconds. The fastest in the pack delivers 7.6 second 0-62 times and 35.6 MPG on the highway.

Needless to say, these are wonderful world-class cars, a world apart from your Uncle’s noisy, slow, smelly 80’s-era diesel.


The Mercedes-Benz V6 diesel-equipped Jeep Grand Cherokee is the first US-built passenger vehicle to meet the tougher Federal emissions requirements. With the emissions work done on the Mercedes’ 3.0 liter engine, we expect the Chrysler 300 to be the next diesel-powered domestic, as it shares the same powerplant. (At present, diesel 300s are being built in Graz, Austria.)

Chrysler is using four different diesel engines, in all:

2.0 liter Volkswagen turbo-diesel inline four (Avenger, Caliber, Compass, Journey, Sebring, Patriot)
2.2 liter Mercedes-Benz inline four (PT Cruiser)
2.8 liter VM Motari inline four (Cherokee, Grand Voyager, Nitro, Wrangler)
3.0 liter Mercedes-Benz V6 (300, Commander, Grand Cherokee)
What if the federal government temporarily rolled back the emissions requirements for one or two years, to allow the sale of these fuel-sipping vehicles while Chrysler and its partners complete the engineering necessary to meet the current regulations?

Crazier schemes have been implemented to stimulate the economy, no doubt about that. But this one just might work … by spurring investment and putting people back to work.

[JimmieD]

Well, Norm, you're absolutely right, as usual. Unfortunately it doesn't count for much. You're missing one key element in your plan: there's no mention of bribery in the form of pandering campaign contributions and under the table lobbyist donations to grease the wheels. No free world tour fact finding juntas, no secret deposits for legislator's kid's educations, no bennies and freebies and rewards. From a legislative Senatorial & Congressional point of view the plan stinks in other words.

Only when the American people stand up to this insidious and fierce assault by anti-American based groups intent on destroying American Capitalist susccesses will anything even start to happen. That is a virtual impossibility, because Green runs the nation now.

America is indeed at war but the largest war is undeclared. That warfare is the old cold warfare type, with every type and sort of jockeying and repositioning of chessboard pieces such that it boggles the mind. Nearly every single major aspect of American prosperity, manufacturing, commercial and residential building, transportation, sales, future growth, energy reserves and development, intrastate and interstate commerce, and countless other apsects of what makes America be America are under full scale attack from all sides, by the Green Lobby and the starry eyed folks that buy into it and support it, including EPA.

A second enemy is the local governments. In case nobody noticed, local traffic management as Transportation Engineering is working against the problem, not for it. Everyday throughout America the traffic light computers reset at peak traffic hours in such a way that they slow down and gridlock traffic for hours instead of speeding and implementing flow. One of the major reasons for this is seen in highway designs and traffic management.

Notice you have hypothetical Hwy X5. A change is made and road signs encourage traffic down X5-B. That's the BUSINESS route. Many times the traffic lights or peak hours signage forces drivers to use the Business routes, in order to stimulate local business! More sales, more tax base: Gridlock!

In other cases streets that should be high speed expressways with no merging into them are instead glutted nightmares of senile octagenarians trying to figure out how to drive across 6 lanes of road, or locals trying to take a shortcut home, or with speed limits drastically reduced and stoplights stopping traffic at every, or very other, intersection.

Traffic manangement is the #1 problem in our larger metropolitan areas in regard to reducing pollutions. The slower a car goes and the farther from the engine's optimum efficiency state the worse the pollution, but 'they' refuse to change the way they do business on our city's streets and hiways.

Great idea and I'm all for it, but you're talking all out war to make it happen. Has nothing to do with logic and clear thinking, it's $$$$ and a group of Greens and their supporters with an anti-American agenda. Local governments join the battle against us as well!

[MoparNorm]

Anytime you get the voters behind an idea, it will happen. Politicians only follow the money until it costs them votes.

[JimmieD]

What do you think would be the best way to get voters educated, motivated and organized so there's some hope of turning the tide?

[MoparNorm]

Go on-line and get the address and email of your elected representatives and mail them copies of that article, every week until election day. It is after all an election year.
Email copies to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Riley, etc., your local talk radio guy, your local newspapers, etc. until everyone gets the message.
email copies to the blogs of the folks mentioned also.

[JimmieD]

Sounds like a plan!

[Hawk]

The truely sad part is that if they changed out the Eproms in the current ECM EFI cars/trucks/SUVs they would have an MPG that would shock most.

GEED is the mix of the issue with both Gas and Desiel fuels.

With the right changes made
Gas could see up to 80 plus
Desiel could see 120 plus

But again, not likely we will see that in our life time, way too much money is being spent too keep the MPG down to 30 or under. And with the record proffits that are being reported by all companys, more they will spend to keep it this way.

Not to mention not like our carb-ed engines will ever see this, its more on the EFI systems. One of the biggests fall backs of older technology.

[MoparNorm]

The truely sad part is that if they changed out the Eproms in the current ECM EFI cars/trucks/SUVs they would have an MPG that would shock most.

GEED is the mix of the issue with both Gas and Desiel fuels.

With the right changes made
Gas could see up to 80 plus
Desiel could see 120 plus

But again, not likely we will see that in our life time, way too much money is being spent too keep the MPG down to 30 or under. And with the record proffits that are being reported by all companys, more they will spend to keep it this way.

Not to mention not like our carb-ed engines will ever see this, its more on the EFI systems. One of the biggests fall backs of older technology.

Hi Hawk!
Could you translate some of that for me?......= )

[80powerwagon]

How much would a diesel in a car be? could they meet the production demand? I would love to see more diesels out there but would this be a $7000 option like on the trucks? Even if its only a $3500 option it might be hard to get people to step up. Diesels have a hard stigma to break and havent been adopted because a lot of people dont want them in a small car. Emissions or not there has to be a market for this. With gas prices soaring it might be worth it but if diesel stays almost a dollar above gas I dont see many people flipping the bill for the extra pricey engine. Dont get me wrong I would love to own a little diesel car that got 50mpg but there has to be a market for it. And right now diesels are too "dirty and undesireable" for the public. People want "clean" hybrids even if they cost and arm and a leg and have electric motors that arent rebuildable and cost $5000 to replace (not to mention labor!). Not to mention a trunk full of nickel hydride batteries that sourced their metal from a strip mine. In the perfect world this would be a great idea but in the real world peoples minds are too twisted by marketing and politicians that are hypocritical putzes that make money off the epidemics they start.

[MoparNorm]

The diesel option will be approximately $1500. The 6.7 Cummins varies between $3,000 and $4600, incentives and rebates usually negate much of the cost. Once Cummins opens the new plant (any day now!) the economy of scale will further lower the price.
Diesel stigma is only for those stuck in the '80's. But I agree, the public needs to be educated, they pay more attention to American Idol than the fate of the world. The new, clean, quiet and fuel efficient diesels need a new marketing strategy, but word of mouth will sweep the nation once owners start talking up their fuel economy.
Here's a little math lesson from the DTA forum where a member is getting 11 mpg from his 440 and is looking into installing a 4BT into his truck:

The 4BT has better torque, 30 mpg and in some cases, the guys who have bought the bread vans from Dove Bid have sold the aluminum bodies, trans and other parts for a net gain, so the motor was "free" but there are other parts that need to be considered, when undertaking an engine conversion.
In addition, at a fuel economy difference of 11 vs 30, which is nearly 200% the payback should be very quick.
For every 1,000 miles driven the gasser needs 90 gallons, the diesel needs 33. At the current $3.50 for gas vs, $4.00 for diesel, that's $315 vs. $132, or $183 saved, every 1,000 miles.
That's $18,300 every 100,000 miles that you save using diesel. If the price of diesel gets down to where it should be, at or below gasoline, you would save over $20,000.

Diesels are no longer dirty, the new generation diesels run cleaner than gasoline motors, way less CO2 and a tad more NOX. The 2.0 diesel in the Patriot that achieved 56 mpg, will start selling here next year, they are built on the Jeep line at Toledo, in fact every Chrysler product except the Viper is being built as a diesel, as we speak in the USA but are being shipped overseas until the ULSD regs take effect nationwide.
Couldn't agree more about hybrids, they are 99% hype, many of the diesel powered Chrysler vehicles get better fuel economy than the hybrids do on the highway and the tiny little gasoline motor has to kick in and do the work.

[JimmieD]

And another thing...

Longevity!!! I have a used Cummins in my Dodge full sized truck, about 90K on the engine. It's backed by a heavy duty 5 speed NV4500, designed to go behind the more powerful and torquey 6BT. Finishing it up is a Dana 60HD, plenty to handle the diesel, plus a H/D drivetrain.

In the 750,000 miles I've put on this truck I've been through 3 gasser engines: 318 Poly, 318 wedge, 360, and 5 Dodge 8 3/4" rearends and ate 2 NP435 input shafts, now past a million miles.

The diesel will easily go 600,000 to 700,000 more miles and so will the tranny, and maybe the rearend. How much savings would that be? At least an extra $10,000 at yesterday's prices! As the price of engine modules goes up keep hitting the little + key. Then add for all the carburetors, carb kits, sparkplugs, distributors, distributor caps, rotors, points & condensers or electronic components, spark plug wires, coils for at least another $1,200? Now add the Edelbrock intake, Edelbrock carb, Hedman Hedders, MSD ignition, Mallory Electric fuel pump & filter and pressure regulator, Accel Coil, and a few other go fast goodies to try to get the 360 to perform as good as a near stock Cummins 4BT = $2,000 more in yesterday's prices.

So that's another maybe $10,000 - $13,000 to stuff in the sock over the lifetime of this particular backyard diesel swap, that gets 30+ MPG!

No doubt an equally reliable system could be built today by Chrysler but it won't be: thanks to the starry eyed Greens selling America down the river with the help of the EPA Environmental Piracy Association.

[rickt4498]

Fuel Economy

[quote=Hawk;56672]The truely sad part is that if they changed out the Eproms in the current ECM EFI cars/trucks/SUVs they would have an MPG that would shock most.

GEED is the mix of the issue with both Gas and Desiel fuels.

With the right changes made
Gas could see up to 80 plus
Desiel could see 120 plus

But again, not likely we will see that in our life time, way too much money is being spent too keep the MPG down to 30 or under. And with the record proffits that are being reported by all companys, more they will spend to keep it this way.

Not to mention not like our carb-ed engines will ever see this, its more on the EFI systems. One of the biggests fall backs of older technology.[/

HAWK -- do u really believe that IF fuel economy could be achieved just by tweaking a computer chip, OE mfg's wouldn't do it already ?

[MoparNorm]

HAWK -- do u really believe that IF fuel economy could be achieved just by tweaking a computer chip, OE mfg's wouldn't do it already ?

Not only would Detroit do it to spur flagging sales the aftermarket would be all over it too. That's the way a free market system works.
Detroit would already have, clean high fuel mileage diesels on the market if they weren't timid to make a multi-million dollar investment in the fact of constantly changing emission regulations.

[Warren Watt]

Diesels in the USA

Thanks Norm and Jimmie for the perspective on this topic. It is always welcome and usually entertaining.
If all of the Chrysler vehicles that are being made here are being shipped abroad, then I assume that some of them are going to Europe to be sold. If so, then the market is good over there and this will continue. If it continues, eventually, other nations (USA) will start to take notice and follow that trend either through public demand or corporate lobbying.
I'm thinking about other instances where the US has followed European trends, metric system, etc. Is this an eventual reality? Or is this approach too slow?
I myself would like to see it happen.

[MoparNorm]

Yes the models are all selling well in Europe, sales are expected to increase 2-3 fold in the next 10 years.

The most important aspect of this is engineering. As recent as last week, people have been writing Chrysler and being told by spokespersons that, no we can't have diesels here, there is no demand and there is no way to put diesels into our current line-up because of suspension changes. etc.
WRONG ANSWER!
As proven by the export list, they are being built now, the suspensions are already designed, the market is ready. The timid, the uniformed, the slow to adapt, they are ALL in the dustbin of history.