sleepyca31

So I saw a nice E class Merc tonight-with a wierd badge on the right hand side and a super cute girl happened to be driving so took the chance to ask her about the badge and waht it was-and she told me it was a diesel-I didnt know we had a lot of diesel cars in the mercedes class. Now why is it again america does not have the BMW diesels? Cleaner burning and a bit cheaper than gas-so what the heck is going on? Not to mention the apperent tunablity (which I still do not understand-why exactly can diesel engines be tuned up so much hp compared to a gas engine??)

Anyway I know in 09 bmw is coming out with D models here but why has it taken so long??

ressla

The tunability is more down to the fact that the diesels are all turbos and turbos lend themselves to performance upgrades very easily eg a simple remap/chip that only alters the length of time the blow-off valve is held down for can increase BHP by 15%. When you consider all the other parameters that can be altered you can see how people were able to remap a 535d from 272 to 370bhp with no other engine mods!

JetBlack5OC

Man Sleepy you sure do start a lot a topics, 7 on 1st page alone of the E60 discussion board. To answer you question about why don't they sell diesel engine bmws in the US. Not a huge market for diesels in US, no one wants them here.

sleepyca31

Right but why dont people want them-I do not see the downside. Diesel is cheaper, I believe gets better gas mileage and it is cleaner and also readily available. That is what I dont get-why is the demand not here in the USA?

And thanks-did not know all diesels were turboed-is that just because diesel does not burn as easily as gas so you need more help with the engine burn?

ressla

20 years ago turbo diesels were rare , now it's virtually impossible to find a non- turbo diesel in any vehicle as the quest for performance progresses. Yeah you're also basically right in that diesel burns more poorly than petrol ( gas).Driving a non-turbo diesel is like horrible,slow,painful torture.

I think historically fuel prices have been so cheap in the US compared to Europe that demand has never existed before.

HWF

I've been driving my Mercedes Diesel 2.5 Turbo since 1990. It's built like a tank, very comfortable ride, smooth on hghways, almost no cost to maintain, and still looks nice. The only problem is that it's noisier and slower than I'd like.