D4D Diesel for USA?

[bronsin]

Originally Posted by Lewis

I actually had a Rabbit diesel in the 1970s so I know from experience what the joy of the VW ownership experience entails.

I was in the market for one of those in 1980. They had an unsold one for $8500. Which is an unconscionable ammount of money for the time. I offered $7500 and they wouldnt go for it. Bought a Subaru Hatchabck instead for $4600 tax and all. Those were the days.

NEVER in a million years would the VW have been CE against the Suby.

So what happened with the VW Diesel that was so awfull?

[Lewis]

Originally Posted by bronsin

I was in the market for one of those in 1980. They had an unsold one for $8500. Which is an unconscionable ammount of money for the time. I offered $7500 and they wouldnt go for it. Bought a Subaru Hatchabck instead for $4600 tax and all. Those were the days.

NEVER in a million years would the VW have been CE against the Suby.

So what happened with the VW Diesel that was so awfull?

----------Back then BOTH the Oldsmobile and VW diesels were actually hastily converted gasoline motors lashed up to address the first big fuel crisis of the 1970's and the gas lines that formed due to the Arab oil boycott. These junkers probably are why Americans have such negative views of diesel automotive power. In both cases head gaskets couldn't contain the higher compression of the diesel combustion and they popped headgaskets over and over until the heads eventually warped, causing radiator fluid to leak into the engine oil which lead to complete engine failure.

My Rabbit diesel actually blew a head gasket about once a month!

Also the quality of the diesel fuel was not pure as the tractor-trailer motors which were the market for diesel then could pretty much tolerate impurities due to their size and strength that would disable automotive diesels . All and all a perfect storm of negativity for automotive diesel power trains existed in the US back then. The only plus I guess was that diesel cost less than gas in those days in the US.

In Europe the history of diesel automotive was written by Mercedes and Peugoet which had rock solid quality in their simple, durable sedans. Their diesels in the 40's-70's were easily good for 500K miles so Europeans are used to thinking of diesels as higher quality engines than gasoline engines in cars I think.

I bought one of these VWs so as not to have wait on the then present gasoline lines as there was plenty of diesel fuel around to power the trucks.

So basically the US market automotive diesels back then were time bombs and VW also had major quality problems with electrical systems and even rust issues as well with their then new front drive Rabbits. The icing on the cake were arrogant and crooked dealers who had really no experience having to fix cars and satisfy customers since the previous Beetles ran forever with very little maintenance and repairs.