Ecodiesel

When i was in the market to buy my ram i was comparing the eco diesel and the hemi options.

what struck me as odd was the fact that you had to add the DEF fluid at every oil change. so every 10 000 kms

now when i used my dutch brain power i calculated the advertised fuel mileages for a truck running to 300 000 kms
adding in the extra cost of the diesel option at the gate. then the DEF fluid for every oil change. vs the hemi option.

the eco diesel never paid for itself over the lifespan of the truck (300 000 kms) plus diesel fuel was more expensive then regular unleaded fuel
that is just up front thinking.

when i got into digging some more i noticed that I could tow more with the hemi option. Not that i tow very often but was a thought in my head.

my uncle has the eco diesel in his truck and he seems to love it, but i am not sold on it just yet. The problems have not been brought out yet. Fuel mileage i do not believe the hype either.

It has not proven itself for the long haul yet.


I ended up with a hemi 4x4 longhorn ram
 
Well I've got a Hemi, be it a third gen truck and the Ecodiesel is capable of highway fuel mileage in the low 30's and 21 city. I only have my aluminum boat to pull and don't have plans for anything larger and the city mileage alone blows my Hemi away by a good chunk. Diesel is quite close in price to gas right now so that would not be an issue.
 
Only putting DEF in every 10K miles! Wow wish we got that kind of DEF consumption from our commercial trucks. ;) It's funny though that institutions and people do not factor in the cost of the DEF into the fuel consumption cost analysis. The Corporation I work for does that as well, and I have ridiculed them for it. They post up the "Cost per mile" charts for the fleets, and no where does it factor in the DEF costs. I bring it to there attention, and they just say it's not a factor, I then state that the truck will not run without it, so yes it HAS to be factored in. They still ignore me.
 
I've been getting relatively good fuel economy with my RAM 1500 4x4 with the HEMI.

Over the life of the vehicle, just over a year now, the average is 12.7 L per 100kms.
On trips where I track mileage, the trip odometer also gives me the fuel economy for that trip and I see averages in the low 11s for most trips.

From most people that I talk to about it, that's great fuel economy for a truck.

I've only towed once with it so far, but I've done a lot of "truck" things with it. Not every day, but enough to say, "I'm glad I had a truck."
 
Diesels are awesome right up until they're not. Then they're expensive as fuck to fix, not even accounting for the complexity of something like the Ecodiesel... which, make no mistake, still has plenty of time to become DaimlerFiat's very own 6.0L Ford (particularly being an ill-conceived V6 arrangment, but at least it's a 60° vee). Plus, being a VM engine not sold in the US prior to the Axis Powers introducing it, it's a whole new ball of wax for dealership service departments and diesel mechanics in general... so expect any repairs to be a time-consuming affair while the wrench carefully opens this alien egg to find out if there's a face-sucker hiding in it. Throw in existing technological "deprovements" such as variable-geometry turbocharging, which is awesome when it works and doomed to failure in 95% of new trucks, and all I see is long times in dealer loaner cars and staggering repair costs when the warranty's expired.

One thing worth mentioning, since the vast majority of active board members live in northern climes: diesel exhaust fluid freezes solid at, absolute best-case scenario, 18°F (most brands freeze around 22°F) That's not even cold. It expands as it freezes, being primarily water. Sayonara, dosing unit. Solenoids, pumps, and in the case of big trucks, the electronics--since everything is contained in one convenient and woefully-expensive unit. That unit, of course, is not covered under warranty due to "acts of God" such as, you know, weather. Parts that will most-often be covered under warranty are extremely expensive, because that expense is a corporate tax write-off... so if you have to actually pay for one, expect your wallet to empty rather quickly. You can't just put it off, either--the truck will derate itself progressively until it only moves fast enough to line it up with the rollback. In the winter of 2013/2014, there was essentially one big-truck dosing unit being used by everyone... and they were failing left and right. They were on intergalactic fucking backorder, which is not something you want to tell your customer with a 2-week-old truck that has less than 2,000 miles on it and literally cannot achieve the speed of a human jogger.

Unless it's paying you to own it, newer diesels are financial fucking suicide. Get something built prior to DEF (Direct Economic Fucking), DPF (Damn, Plugs Fast!), EGR (Eats Goddamned Retirement) and VGT (Vanes Get Touchy) if you feel you simply must have compression ignition.

If you'd like, we can move along and talk about why the idiotic 8-speed pansymatic behind the Ecodiesel is going sully Dodge's horrible transmission reputation even further.
 
Tell us how you really feel Doc!


Not as upset as I was about not holding out for the perfect 12V anymore :toot:
 
My original response was much longer. :D

Here's the deal: Everyone's advertising "cleaner-burning" diesels these days, and it is 100% bullshit. They can't burn any more cleanly than they did 15+ years ago. It's simple physics, and they still belch black smoke out of the exhaust valve like they always have. What they're making is "extraordinarly complex exhaust system" diesels to make the exhaust look prettier. All that soot is going through the turbine housing of the turbocharger, since all the exhaust after-treatment is downstream from there. If you're not working that diesel constantly, the soot will jam the variable vanes in the VGT. It's not an "if", it's a "when". Then, you've got your DEF system which is a catalyst to lower NOx emissions but at the same time is cooling the soot. Cooling anything lowers its energy (that's why you want to keep heat in your turbine housing, though I won't get into the physics of it) which in this case makes it harder for the soot to even make it all the way to the back of the DPF, which is essentially an air filter for your exhaust. But wait, there's more! Now you have to do "regenerations" which are nothing more than getting the DPF cherry red to--wait for it--burn the soot into smaller particles that are still fucking soot but much harder to see so they're, uh, not soot anymore (even though they're very much still fucking soot). Ostrich logic: if you can't see it, it must not be there. Here's the kicker: whatever soot doesn't burn out during a regen is essentially turned into The Powder Coating from Hell. Yep, it's burned into the DPF, accelerating its inevitable demise.

Oh, yeah... regeneration systems now mean your diesel has at least one spark plug. :D

The DPF for a 2008 Ford F-250 6.4L (I happened to have a VIN handy)--which is abso-damned-lutely going to clog and require replacement (and you're gonna be on a tow truck at that point)--sells for $1,798.67 at the dealer. That's a reman, for God's sake! There's an additional $150 core charge on your old one. Oh, you want new? Those have been discontinued because they're all out of warranty now and sold for more than $4,000. Aftermarket? About $150 less than the reman OE online, but currently backordered until the Second Coming. Make no mistake: Without a $2,000+ black-market tuner and the person who knows how to make the magic happen with it, the truck will not run without it. There is no inexpensive way around the DPF, period. Every diesel built since 2008 has one.

Buy 'em up, boys... what could possibly go wrong? :doh:
 
Though not an eco diesel, I have an 08 Cummins with the dpf, and the variable vane turbo. The dpf plugged once when it was fairly new, because I let it idle like one would do with any older diesel. I'm not a fan of running a diesel cold. Since it was fixed, it hasn't given any trouble, but I do keep my eye on it. As I understand (chime in here, Doc), if you haul a bunch and drive the sheeeeeeiiiiiit out of it, you're going to have minimal problems. If you drive it in town and don't pull, you're rolling the dice. That being said, I'm happy to be pulling 10K+ pounds several times a week.
 
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