[alfa] In Defense of Diesel

[Benjamin Kaupp <bkaupp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just for the record, Diesel (and even the Evil American Diesel Engine
of Doom) is not all bad. Yes the Europeans make better Diesel engines,
simply because they have more experience with it. But everybody
immediately discounts Diesel as inferior, and this isn't necessarily
true
 Emissionswise, it is possible to run a Diesel car on biofuel. This
reduces greenhouse gases by 80% and removes dependance on crude oil. It
also is better for your engine than most commercial Diesel these days
because of the required additives. Performance doesn't suffer at all.
 Speaking of performance, there's a reason big trucks are all Diesel.
When you're towing your broken down Alfa it's all about torque, and
Diesels have that down cold. Also, there's a guy in SCCA racing who's
running a BMW 3 series with a 524 turbo Diesel engine (and running
biodiesel to boot). He is very competitive and has made it to several
class wins.

I apologize for this, it's just that I see what's happening to the
environment and I see the pathetic attempts to fix it with hybrids and
then I see the Alfa GT with a 1.9l JTD engine and I wonder why
everybody has to immediately discount it.

Oh, and yes. I am from Santa Cruz, home of medical marijuana, communes,
and solar powered armpit hair. But I'm also a realist.

-Ben Kaupp
'78 Spider (still sucking supreme unleaded at 21mpg)
'82 Merc 240d (clean and smelling slightly like chinese food)
'87 Ford F250SD Diesel (has towed the Alfa more times than I care to
remember)
'04 eGO Cycle II (20 mile range, but emissions free and silent)

On Sun, 23 May 2004 20:36:56 -0600, C M Smith mentioned the following:
> Diesel engines noisy? North American Diesel engines, like most
> commercial vehicles over here are extremely noisy. Why? Because there
> are no noise regulations that apply to commercial vehicles as far as
> I can tell. Why anyone in North America would even consider buying a
> diesel powered passenger vehicle is beyond my understanding. Anything
> a diesel can do can be done better by gasoline in a passenger car
> application. However, European designs of diesel engines for
> passenger cars are amazing powerplants. Useless for North America
> though, our fuel tax and pricing regimes do not favour diesel powered
> passenger cars.
>
> Modern passenger car diesel engines from outside the US market are a
> revelation. However, the advantage of diesel is largely
> illusory,dependent as it is upon lower fuel taxes on diesel to make
> it attractive.
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