Don't Hold Your Breath For A Diesel Jeep Cherokee

by Derek Kreindler

Published: June 27th, 2014

don t hold your breath for a diesel jeep cherokee

The Jeep Grand Cherokee received a diesel option earlier this year, but don’t look for the Cherokee to get one any time soon – at least not in North America.

Speaking to Automotive News, Manley said that while the Grand Cherokee diesel take rate is about 8 percent, that number would have to increase before the Cherokee could get a diesel

“Cherokee is slightly different because of its weight and size. When I think about bringing Cherokee diesel here, I would like to see Grand Cherokee diesel get much higher than 8 percent…It would have to be in mid-double digits.”

While a diesel Cherokee likely has many fans on the internet, reality is more complex. A diesel Cherokee would have to sell in sufficient numbers to meet very stringent U.S. regulations, and would have to come in at a pricepoint that is palatable to American buyers. In the Grand Cherokee, the diesel carries a $4,500 premium.

There’s also the matter of capacity. With Jeep building about 250,000 units globally at its Toledo, Ohio plant, they may not have room to mess with the current model mix by adding a diesel. The Cherokee may not be tops on the compact CUV sales charts, sales are brisk and inventories are well controlled. Jeep is likely selling every Cherokee they can produce for the U.S. market, and a diesel may not be necessary – yet.

#Cuv #Diesel #Jeep #JeepCherokee #SUV

Derek Kreindler

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9 of 22 comments

Anti121hero on Jun 27, 2014

The liberty crd was the only liberty I would consider buying. This however.. I don't care if they offer a 6.4 v8 in it, I think they should kill it off.

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Sitting@home on Jun 27, 2014

I WILL be holding my breath if they DO start selling a Diesel Cherokee. Living next to a high school I already put up with a mass of soccer moms idling their CUVs in order to keep the A/C running for an hour before classes end. Add in some Diesels and I'll probably be getting frequent visitor discounts on the emphysema doctor's co-payment.

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- Old Man Pants on Jun 27, 2014
  
  Oh, God, there's a memory I didn't need. I worked one summer in a garage at the steel mill keeping diesel vehicles in service before moving up to the Met Lab. Ventilation nil, constant exhaust fumes choking me, steady nausea. I have despised that pungent stench through all these years.
  
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Lynn Ellsworth on Jun 27, 2014

Can some of you answer a few questions about diesel engines? 1. Here in the US diesel fuel costs more, is this true all over the world? 2. Does cleaning and refining oil to make diesel fuel more difficult than making gasoline? 3. Since a diesel engine has to be stronger and heavier, since the diesel fuel costs more, since the higher compression necessary to burn diesel makes more noise, and since the heavier engine/higher compression makes a slow revving engine what advantage is there to a diesel powered vehicle? I can understand that using harder to burn diesel fuel in ship engines, locomotives, and very large trucks may reduce fire danger compared to gasoline but is there any other advantage?

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- Sigivald on Jun 27, 2014
  
  "2. Does cleaning and refining oil to make diesel fuel more difficult than making gasoline?" No. But the thing is, it's all made by fractional distillation of crude oil. [http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/oil-refining4.htm] The crude has long, heavy hydrocarbon chains, and short, light ones, and in between. Roughly speaking, the mid-light stuff is gasoline and the mid-heavy stuff is diesel (this is a vast simplification, but good enough). So you have a basically fixed proportion of each in each unit of crude (though this varies from crude source to crude source, somewhat). With cracking and reforming you can turn smaller or larger chains into larger or smaller ones, but that is naturally more expensive than just distilling the extant ones out. So it's not more difficult to make diesel, particularly - it's just different fuel, and the proportions are hard to alter. (This is why diesel costs go up in the US in winter - because the same base oil is used for home heating, especially in the northeast. Increased demand, increase price.) On your last question, I believe the diesel design is mechanically better suited to low-RPM high-torque applications like shipboard motors than gasoline engines, though I don't pretend to understand the mechanical reasons.
  
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- Big Al from Oz on Jun 27, 2014
  
  @Lynn E. I think you'll find there are a few factors that are artificially inflating the price of the lower quality US diesel. 1. Higher levels of tax on diesel. 2. The US manufactures higher quality Euro diesel and exports the fuel to the EU. The reason is the US oil companies make more money selling to the EU than the US. 3. The US/Canada particularly in the NE use vast quantities of heating oil, which is a distillate, competing with diesel fuel. Rather than pumping taxpayer dollars into useless EVs and hybrids the US could spend that money on decent gas infrastructure so all Americans can have access to cheap gas in their homes. This would have a large impact in reducing pollutants in NA than EVs and hybrids. The US has a poor energy policy protecting and subsidising it's energy companies.
  
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- 95_SC on Jun 28, 2014
  
  @Big Al from Oz But one could argue that in Europe the inverse is true...higher taxes on gasoline while diesel enjoys the subsidy and even with those higher taxes here in the US it is still cheaper than other parts of the world.
  
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- Big Al from Oz on Jun 28, 2014
  
  @mkirk Yes, especially in France. Which is a to some extent a polarisation of the US situation in energy policy. The French like their canola farmers for bio diesel and the US like their corn farmers for ethanol.
  
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Hybridkiller on Jun 28, 2014

As a certified diesel fan this would normally be somewhat distressing news to me, but considering the breathtakingly mediocre fuel economy of previous diesel Jeeps I'm having trouble getting too worked up over it. Maybe if it were mated to that new-fangled 9sp...

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