windswords :
NO ONE is gonna buy an HD because that’s the only one that comes with a diesel.

I’d bet you half a car park of 2500 Diesel Rams that your wrong! Most of the HD Rams I see in Columbus IN are loaded with (obviously very heavy) air

CommanderFish :
They were planning a new V6 Cummins diesel

Cummins HAVE developed a 5ish ltr V8 that was destine for the 1500 – They didn’t plan a 2011 launch without spending lots of money (before July’s announcement canceling the contact)

phargophil :
My money says that if Dodge trucks offer a diesel in 5 years, it will be an Iveco.

According to yesterday Chrysler details they’ll keep the Cummins 6.7 in the HD rams. The suggestion is that a Iveco diesel would be fitted in the the Ram 1500 – however looking at the various Fiat (Iveco) engine website I can’t see anything that would meet the light duty truck need (assuming you’d want something that is >300 hp)

I see them on the street all the time. Not quite that bad, but still an obnoxious amount of smoke.

Because diesels are so easy to tune for smoky emissions, I’m actually happy when manufacturers offer fewer diesel options.

http://www.industryweek.com/articles/cummins_to_conclude_joint_ventures_with_cnh_and_iveco_16868.aspx

2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee CRD Road Trip – Diesel Grand Cherokee
Long Term Road Trip
http://www.jpmagazine.com/featuredvehicles/154_0903_2008_jeep_grand_cherokee_road_trip/index.html

As someone who would be in the target market for this truck, I am disappointed. I’m not interested in a gas-powered truck, and certainly not a hybrid. I’m glad that Dodge finally wrapped the 2500-series in the new bodystyle for 2010, but I would not sell my 1994 RAM2500 Cummins to buy one. If they never build anything I like better, I can keep my current truck roadworthy almost forever.

You guys can gripe about Dodge quality all you like, but the only complaint that I have is with the factory stereos which always break. I went through four of them before I finally installed an aftermarket unit. Granted, my truck is 15 years old, so maybe Dodge truck quality has gone downhill since.

@Bergwerk: Fiatsler may have looked at the numbers for Jeep GC diesel sales and concluded that light-duty diesels don’t sell, but IMO they would be in error. I’ve looked into the GC diesel. When they initially started selling it, the diesel was only available in the top trim level of GC which jacked-up the price. I wouldn’t want to be forced to pay for sat-nav and heated seats to get a diesel.

On the maintenance side, the engine in the GC diesel requires some Mercedes-spec 5W30 oil that’s expensive and difficult to find in North America, and you have to go to a Mercedes dealer to find an oil filter because none of the parts stores carries them. That’s a $200 oil change with me doing the labor myself!

Aside: I checked-out Iveco’s website. They have 5.9L and 6.7L I6 turbodiesels in their NEF engine series. Are those displacements a coincidence or are these actually Cummins engines?

Seriously, how do you get that much smoke to come out of an engine? I really want to know.

it does seem to be running a bit rich, doesn’t it?

My 05 colorado has 172,000 on it and runs new. My work, not GM’s. Synthetic fluids changed well before schedule have surely helped. If GM made a light duty 4 cylinder diesel for this truck it would solve a lot of contractors problems. Between gigantic, cant see into the bed full size trucks to the tiny ranger I cant find the right porridge.

Just imagine that the Colorado is basically the Isuzu D-Max sold with a 2.5L Turbo Diesel in the rest of the world outside the US. A diesel that gets in the 30mpg range for a light truck. Good thing GM never liked Isuzu that much.

I have anecdotal evidence that says you’re wrong. I have known two people (probably more if I thought hard) that bought a pickup for purely recreational reasons and bought a Ram 2500 because it had the Cummins ISB. One guy had a 94 Cummins 2500 that he used as a heavy truck but bought a 2001 for his wife. Another bought a 2003 who was just looking for something different than his V8 Exploder and missed having a pickup around the house, plus wanted a diesel because he liked the technical aspects of diesel engines. To my knowledge neither used those trucks for more than the “occasional home-improvement warehouse” trip or the “occasional dump run” that people say pickups aren’t necessary for at all.

My goodness, what will the Calvin-pissing-on-the-Chevy-logo-sticker crowd in my neck of the woods find to replace them?

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2009/06/chrysler_to_dump_cummins_diese.html

Ford, GM and Honda all have put their diesel product expansion plans on hold in the US as well. The main problem is that diesel engines are too expensive for the benefits they provide in light duty applications.

Great pic, by the way.

Chryco doesn’t have the resources to pay for it and unless Ford comes out of the wings to take over the contract — a rather brilliant move by Ford if they could pull it off — there’s no one else that would buy that engine. Toyota doesn’t have the market share to pull it off.

Cummins isn’t the premier N.A. diesel manu by chance nor did they get that way by doing stupid moves.

If I were Toyota, I’d be having some serious discussions with Cummins.

Sure, the Tundra’s a hard sell now.

But think long term, 4+ years out. If Government Motors and Fiatsler stay true to form, they should be on or past their 2nd BK filing or liquidation. The Tundra, steadily improved, with some Cummins cachet, could become the new F150. (Although I still doubt they’ll ever use that San Antonio plant).

Rule of thumb at one company was that that we sold the base car to the distributor for twice the cost of the components, but for higher series and so on we got 5 times the incremental cost of components. Now I’m sure the exact numbers have changed in 20 years, but not all that much.

“John Williams
+1

Spot-on. Offering a diesel 1500 would sap sales from the Cummins 2500 far more than from competitors. The only benefit to this is if the diesel 1500’s combined EPA rating is high enough to bring up the truck fleet average. Otherwise they’d benefit by pushing low-mpg truck buyers over the GVW limit and out of the CAFE calculation.”

Not even close. There is no market for these engines. They would get BETTER mpg’s than a gas engine so CAFE is not an issue. The 2500-4500 market is NOT the same as the 1500 light truck market. NO ONE is gonna buy an HD because that’s the only one that comes with a diesel. If the US didn’t have stupid EPA regs for diesel and were like Europe the engines would be cheaper to make. THEN you might be able to sell enough to the light truck buyer.

Strapped to a hybrid unit?!

Have you seen Chrysler’s V6’s? They’re all ancient and inefficient. The 2-mode system was created in a time before the Pentastar/Phoenix V6, and I believe they’re going to use that V6 going forward

Wrong. He said; “would not confirm the diesel is still in the works and refused to comment on its future other than”, as shown below, than added the convinced part.

“But the engineering chief would not confirm the diesel is still in the works and refused to comment on its future other than to say he isn’t convinced there is enough of a market among recreational buyers.”
http://www.detnews.com/article/20091027/AUTO01/910270321/1148/rss25

It’s hard to amortize the extra cost of the diesel option when the rest of the vehicle falls apart long before the engine is finished.