Do you eventually get over the claterring of a diesel?

[HoHoHo]

Phon_E87 said:

Wills2 said:

no revs to play with, tiny power band etc...

So adapt.

I currently drive a V8 TT with 562bhp and 680NM torque.

My next car is a smelly Diesel with 3 Turbos, 381bhp and 740NM torque.

I suspect it will go quite well and I'll be quite happy driving it

Who suggested Diesels can't use the rev range

[sebhaque]

I've had plenty of diesel cars and due to the unique way my company makes us travel, I get an Avis car delivered to my house usually twice a month for a few days at a time, so I've also driven lots of generic cars, including diesels.

With the way petrol engines are going, I actually prefer driving a brand new diesel over a petrol. I recently had a pair of Focuses (Focii?) back-to-back, one petrol and one diesel. The Ecoboost petrol engine felt gutless, it would climb up the rev range without much encouragement, but while it made a nice noise it didn't really feel like it was pressing on. The diesel, while displaying the typical characteristic of a short power curve, felt a lot more refined than the petrol to drive, purely because you could keep it in gear to ascend a gradient in the road, whereas the petrol would make a meal of changing gear a hundred times.

I have a petrol Astra on the drive at the moment and, having covered 400 miles in it today, I'm happy to report it is also woefully slow on a run. I had a diesel Mokka a few months back, so a slightly different comparison, but performance-wise the Mokka never felt like it was struggling to carry its weight around. I did a 300-mile round trip in it and can't remember anything major I dislked about it. I remember keeping the Astra in 5th accelerating out of roadworks (so 50-70mph) and being out-dragged by a Transit. I ended up spending the rest of the commute dropping down to third to get back up to speed, then block shifting to fifth. Not exactly dangerous, but a little more frustrating than I'd like.

Edit: bks, I completely went off on a tangent there. For the thread question, yes, I do. I only dislike the noise of a diesel when you're driving flat out as, I assume due to the weight and subsequent resonance of the engine, full throttle in a diesel makes itself a lot more pronounced in the cabin than of an equivalent petrol. I don't like the sound of a diesel clattering at 4krpm, but for day-to-day driving, I can't complain. I have a nice sounding car in the garage for the weekend. To get to work and back, I really don't care what type of fuel my car uses as long as it's not an insonorous racket.

Edited by sebhaque on Thursday 25th August 00:19

[rayyan171]

Our X5 E70 has the 3.0sd engine variant. It makes a pleasing growl when it starts, settling to a reassuring rumble when at idle. When pressing on, it sounds great and the torque is unreal. Flooring it in 6th from 70 on the motorway is a great experience. Surprised at how BMW have retained the 6 cylinder noises from the petrol variant.

The XC90 is quite agricultural with the D5 engine, which has to be really strained due to the size of the car. The straining makes it have that true typical clatter that's associated with the 4 cylinder diesels (shudder). Sounds better than the 4cyl though. I imagine the T6 twin turbo/V8 petrol would sound better and drive better

Straight 6/v6/v8/v10 diesels sound really nice IMHO. The clatter of diesels are being eliminated now, lots of them sound like petrols now. The current VAG diesels barely sound like diesels - 2016 Audi A6 3.0 TDI for example

https://youtu.be/8ll6ZoIxAp0

BMW did try to eliminate it too when the N57 was introduced - they used some type of technology to decrease the diesel 'clatter'.

BMW M57
https://youtu.be/hqL0Muigz70

BMW N57
https://youtu.be/93lyF1cKc_w

Notice how the N57 sounds smoother.

To sum up, diesel clatter is being eliminated - lots of manufacturers are trying to eliminate diesel clatter. Some petrols can even sound less refined than some diesels!

Edited by rayyan171 on Thursday 25th August 01:25

[sebhaque]

In fairness, diesels can sound good and have done so for many years. I'm surprised nobody's posted about the Detroit diesels yet. Rather interesting sound to them - while certainly not "refined", they also don't sound much like your typical diesel. I wouldn't complain if I heard this rumbling past my house at 7am.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnN1i9LjAw0&&a...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVjXwS8HzFw&t=...

Honourable mention to the old 300D.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkSrHhRbPms&t=...

[OldGermanHeaps]

Tuned diesels can sound pretty good to my ears.

[TazLondon]

Does anybody have experiences of Audi's BiTDi engines. They look interesting from the power front, producing more than 300bhp through a twin-turbo V6 3.0L engine. Not sure how they sound though.

[coppice]

HustleRussell said:

coppice said:

Somr folk do like to show off their PH credentials by getting hysterical about diesel's unbearable noise and smell - such sensitive souls..Reality is - they're just fine unless you are desperate to find fault .

Hysteria? Unbearable? Or, some folk simply prefer petrol.

Of course some prefer petrol - me included for a fun car. But what I was referring to was the comic overreaction to diesel's downside often seen on PH as if the poster's hyperbole conferred credibility .

[Screechmr2]

a few months back i was parked next to my sister, her ford s-max tdci was idling next to my petrol a3 v6. She commented how rough my car sounded, walked a couple of feet towards the front then turned back when she realised it was the diesel clatter coming from her car and she couldn't even hear mine. For me, this sums up the noise issue the op would get from a diesel but once moving you don't notice it in the car, it's mainly just when outside either at idle or lower speeds.

[wjb]

HoHoHo said:

Who suggested Diesels can't use the rev range

Rotary owners.

[jamieduff1981]

spookly said:

OldGermanHeaps said:

Do people who go from diesel to petrol ever learn to live with the lack of low to mid range torque? It must get tiring having to drop gears and use high revs to make civilised progress. If you do get a petrol car with diesel low-mid range torque it usually needs a fill up every 350 or so miles, that must be miserable?

Had both. Yes, anything less than a V8 petrol feels lethargic when you aren't ragging it. I switched from a 1.9TID Saab into a BMW 330ci and the BMW felt dead until 4000+ rpm in comparison.

But a V8 petrol has the best of both worlds. Fill up every 350 miles would be amazing, more like 250 miles if lucky and around 17mpg.

It's not like one needs to get bummed in the toilets every time they stop to fill up with fuel. I really don't see why miles per tank is even a consideration for 99.9% of drivers. There are filling stations everywhere and many of them don't even require the driver to walk inside to pay nowadays.

[HoHoHo]

wjb said:

HoHoHo said:

Who suggested Diesels can't use the rev range

Rotary owners.

But they're a bunch of wanklers

[NDNDNDND]

wjb said:

HoHoHo said:

Who suggested Diesels can't use the rev range

Rotary owners.

Anybody who knows how to use a rev range...

[sealtt]

jamieduff1981 said:

It's not like one needs to get bummed in the toilets every time they stop to fill up with fuel. I really don't see why miles per tank is even a consideration for 99.9% of drivers. There are filling stations everywhere and many of them don't even require the driver to walk inside to pay nowadays.

It's just an extra errand it would be nice to do without.

[coppice]

jamieduff1981 said:

It's not like one needs to get bummed in the toilets every time they stop to fill up with fuel. I really don't see why miles per tank is even a consideration for 99.9% of drivers. There are filling stations everywhere and many of them don't even require the driver to walk inside to pay nowadays.

Hmm - here's a man who hasn't toured NW Scotland in a 5.5 gallon tanked Caterham... I must be the 0.1%

[Phon_E87]

NDNDNDND said:

Anybody who knows how to use a rev range...

You can use the whole range in a diesel, you just have less to use.
What's your point?

[HoHoHo]

Phon_E87 said:

NDNDNDND said:

Anybody who knows how to use a rev range...

You can use the whole range in a diesel, you just have less to use.
What's your point?

/\ What the man says

And in the case of a tri-turbo diesel you can use all of the rev range available

[rayyan171]

sebhaque said:

In fairness, diesels can sound good and have done so for many years. I'm surprised nobody's posted about the Detroit diesels yet. Rather interesting sound to them - while certainly not "refined", they also don't sound much like your typical diesel. I wouldn't complain if I heard this rumbling past my house at 7am.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnN1i9LjAw0&&a...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVjXwS8HzFw&t=...

Honourable mention to the old 300D.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkSrHhRbPms&t=...

I give you the Scania V8
https://youtu.be/hOEXyIuyQ1E

[Wills2]

Phon_E87 said:

NDNDNDND said:

Anybody who knows how to use a rev range...

You can use the whole range in a diesel, you just have less to use.
What's your point?

The point could be that there isn't much available and in most the torque and therefore power fails off a cliff giving you an effective rev range of 2k if you're lucky.

The V8 diesels make sense in large SUVs in the UK, in fact most diesels make sense if you do a lot of miles but it doesn't make them fun or good to drive just effective against objective measures.

[lostkiwi]

HoHoHo said:

Phon_E87 said:

NDNDNDND said:

Anybody who knows how to use a rev range...

You can use the whole range in a diesel, you just have less to use.
What's your point?

/\ What the man says

And in the case of a tri-turbo diesel you can use all of the rev range available

Ah yes - the ubiquitous tri-turbo diesel.....

[HoHoHo]

lostkiwi said:

HoHoHo said:

Phon_E87 said:

NDNDNDND said:

Anybody who knows how to use a rev range...

You can use the whole range in a diesel, you just have less to use.
What's your point?

/\ What the man says

And in the case of a tri-turbo diesel you can use all of the rev range available

Ah yes - the ubiquitous tri-turbo diesel.....

Without doubt an impressive piece of engineering