I get too many confusing answers about diesel? So I'll ask the experts, is diesel clean? because I know that europe has improved the technology quite a bit, so why aren't we using it? apparently according to a canadian goverment emissions rating, a diesel v-dub jetta releases just almost the same amount of CO2 then a hybrid?!?! Can anybody educate me plz?

 

It depends on what you call "clean". No combustion is 100% clean. Diesels have improved with the addition of catalytic convertors and soot traps, but it's not like they're non-polluting.

Why don't you see more diesel cars in N. America? Take a look at Diesel prices. A gallon of Diesel costs more than a gallon of gas, and contains less energy. Diesel used to be cheaper than gas here; it's still cheaper in Europe. Remember that taxes make up the bulk of the price of gas and Diesel in Europe. Americans briefly flirted with Diesel cars after the gas crises in the 70s, but it just didn't stick. Here we have little incentive to use Diesel.

 

Diesels get good gas mileage but are very heavily polluting (The VW TDIs are the worst polluting vehicles on the market in their classes) if using the diesel fuel that is available in North America.

In Europe they have low-sulphur fuels which I've heard are much better in this regard (Low sulphur means less sulphur compounds in the tailpipe which means less acid rain). You'll also hear a lot of people nattering about bio-diesel, which if I remember correctly is made from corn and burns relatively cleanly but isn't yet available at the pumps anywhere in the world.

I've never seen diesel cost more than 87 octane unleaded.

 

But you can make your own.

Around here, diesel is almost $2 a gallon. 87 octane is about $1.70.

 

For reference:

http://www.see-search.com/business/f...iceseurope.htm

 

So if you live in europe it's good, if you live in N. america too bad? hehe tks for the link and the help, it clears a lot of confusion tks guys

 

That's it in a nutshell. That doesn't mean that you'd be a fool to get a Diesel in N. America. There are some applications where Diesels excel, but in the US it don't usually include passenger cars. This might change if the war in Iraq gets messy.

 

Diesel engines are a wasted precious resource. They were orginally designed to run on any kind of organic oils, like peanut, canola, etc. Bio-Diesel is made from oil and alcohol, and the by product of making it is soap. the add alcohol to basically thin out the mixture and aid in combustion...but a Diesel engine can run on just straigh oil too, but the problem with that is the oil need to be heated in order for it to not clog up injectors...plus the engine has to be started with regular diesel then switched to heated plant oils after its running

the reason we use Diesel Fuel instead of natural oils is because its cheaper...Bio-Diesel cost roughly 4-5 dollars a gallon. to make. Even if you go into a supermarket, canola oil would come out to like 3-4 dollars a gallon.

What some diesel fanatics do is get the extra oil from fast food restaurants and use that for fuel, since the restaurant is usually willing to sell off the waste oil for free...imagine the exhaust of your car smelling like chicken nuggets.

Anyway, BioDiesel is much cleaner then you think, if you do the big picture senerio. If planted oil producing crops on all the unused farmland in america we'd be making fuel, oxygen. Burning the fuel from plants would net less hydrocarbons then using fossil fuels.

Why the hell do we not use diesel?????

 

and then lets consider a tdi jetta that can make 140hp and 250 ft/lbs of torque....
i wouldnt mind having one of those burning leftover jack in teh crotch oil....

 

Well some of you mentioned that diesel is pricier than gas but doesn't a tank of diesel last a whole lot longer than a tank of gas?
I mean even if it's just a tad pricier, but here in canada it's about 10c cheaper for each litre of diesel, 79.9 for gas and 65.x for diesel.