I thought diesel's were supposed to be hard to stall?

[BB-Q]

ZesPak said:

SoapyShowerBoy said:

If im taking it easy I will rarely go over 2000 rpm in a modern diesel, you just need to get use to it.

Same here,

And for the "narrow powerband 2000-2500", that's just rubbish, what diesel have you driven?

Modern diesels have there power from 1800-3800 easely.

You say that in defence of diesels, but if anyone boasted that their petrol engined car had a 2000rpm power band you'd probably think that their car was cr*p.

One of the reasons a modern diesel is so gutless low down is because it's running so lean that it's in danger of stalling without any help from the driver.

The problem is that diesels enjoy the same stoichiometric ratio as petrol engines and actually have a slightly higher calorific value to the fuel, so should produce more power for a similar compression ratio, cam timing etc. However, have you seen those diesel tractor pullers that blacken out the sky? That's a diesel running around it's stoichiometric ratio. Hence why many modern diesels have the immensly unreliable particle filters, ehich are designed to catch all that smoke and then burn it off whilst the engine is running at a constant high rpm (say, motorway). The problem is, although the diesel apologists (the petrolheaded vegetarian, in my opinion) will deny it, this is a bandaid at best and in day to day running simply doesn't work.

Modern diesels may do more to the gallon than their older equivalents, but they are less reliable, harder to drive and far more fragile.

I voice this a opinion as a breakdown patrol, by the way.

[Munter]

BB-Q said:

Modern diesels may do more to the gallon than their older equivalents, but they are less reliable, harder to drive and far more fragile.

I voice this a opinion as a breakdown patrol, by the way.

I'd go with that. The actual fuel and what it could offer is great. The modern implimentation sucks.

[cptsideways]

Agreed with the above thread, modern diesels are suffering from far too much super lean, emissions controls or bad mapping from a drivers point of view. Add in dual mass flywheels & you have an awful combination that would'nt pull the skin off a rice pudding.

Go back 5 or 10 years & you have uber torque at idle, thats off boost torque too though they did smoke a bit more.

Best of the old skool bunch in terms of driveability are:

Pug/Citroen XUD
VAG 1.9 Tdi 90 & 110's
VAG/Volvo 2.5 5 Pot Tdi 140bhp

Wosrt was Ford TD's they were shockingly bad

Best of the new skool

Ford/Landrover 2.4 TDCi if they sped up the "Fly by Pigoen" throttle delay

[FoolOnTheHill]

I've only ever stalled my Bora PD130 once in 6 months of driving.

Learn to drive better.

[RedAlfa]

-

Edited by RedAlfa on Friday 7th May 19:49

[mgrays]

The 1.9 PD VAG has unit injectors instead of common rail (Mk3-4 Golf.. think the newer 2.0 tdi in the Mk5 is common rail?). It takes time to ramp up the injection volume so torque from idle is poor. If you point it up a hill while on the go and roll off the throttle it will drive up a mountain on idle (do this every day as my farm track is so bad).

The common rail ones should be better but I am still stalling once in a while after 40k miles

As an aside.. if you look under these tdi they have a 5hp fuel cooler on the return line.. that is an indication of how much power it takes to drive high pressure pumps required! If they could improve the pump efficiency they could give another 2-3 hp at the wheels and likewise on economy.

[collateral]

cptsideways said:

Go back 5 or 10 years & you have uber torque at idle, thats off boost torque too though they did smoke a bit more.

Best of the old skool bunch in terms of driveability are:

Pug/Citroen XUD
VAG 1.9 Tdi 90 & 110's
VAG/Volvo 2.5 5 Pot Tdi 140bhp

My idle is a bit high at 1k but it'll pull away at 1.25k with no fuss. You can also leave it in 3rd gear as long as you're already in motion and it'll go to about 15mph without touching the pedals and won't stall...

If you leave a good enough gap it makes stop start driving much less of a ballache

[dudleybloke]

just give it some! iv always found that 3500 rpm is usualy enough to make sure you dont stall! if the wheels spin dont worry as their not your tyres!

[p1esk]

ZesPak said:

SoapyShowerBoy said:

If im taking it easy I will rarely go over 2000 rpm in a modern diesel, you just need to get use to it.

Same here,

And for the "narrow powerband 2000-2500", that's just rubbish, what diesel have you driven?

Modern diesels have there power from 1800-3800 easely.

Our 406 HDi has hardly ever stalled, and I get around quite well without using more than 2000/2500 rpm most of the time, but I have found the Ford TDCi engines in the Focus and Mondeo more prone to stalling.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[MitchT]

I borrowed a BMW 320d (E46) once and I hated it. More than 1500rpm and it took-off up the road like a missile, anything less to try to avoid this and it would cut-out. Was glad to get back to my 318is (E36).

[Steve_F]

2.2 Tid SAAB engine is seriously difficult to stall and is recoverable if you do manage to do it (usually when in third instead of first!). It'll pull off without touching the accelerator easily enough.

[Skodaku]

Never had a problem with my old Fabia vRS in 43k miles. It seemed happy to trickle away at silly low revs. Maybe, in the quest for some "efficiency" gain, they've done something "bad" to the new generation.

Current D5 is impossible to stall................but maybe that's 'cos it's mated to a 6-spd Geartronic, eh ?