the old XUD

that the nice Pug 1.9 they did?  That was a piece of work, i know of one dude with a 205D and its done over 500k.  The only thing he has done to it was replace the bearing shells last year, and did the water pump at the same time because the pump was "old" and he thought the shells where starting to rumble.  Hes had that since brand new, and refuses to get rid.

Quote from: BXGTi16V

(Renault aside) they are still the most reliable and long lived. 300k miles + is easily achievable. They arent overstressed and overcomplicated like their german counterparts, and even the old XUD will still outperform many of the modern units on fuel economy (Most modern diesels rely on a ludicrously high top gear for their artificial fuel consumption figures) It still remains to be seen how long the germans will last, seeing as how they are still relative newcomers.

Yeah, theyve only been importing Merc and VW diesels stateside for 40 years. Im not familiar with the French ones, but Ive had long chats with my VW trained mechanic, Emil, about German diesels. He recommends them highly, even buying them when he sees them in the paper, shining them up and reselling as he loves them so. Mechanically either brand should go 300K plus, you have to worry more about crap like switches and latches breaking, just like in a gasoline car. In my hood, there are plenty of 30 y/o Mercedes 300* diesels, as theyre big and a lot of local musicians use them to haul gear.

Really, I dont know what your talking about. Only really bad diesel VW made was the non turbo diesel Rabbit/Golf in the late 70s. It was underpowered, but durable.

Im talking about the current generation diesels that are overstressed and overgeared giving them unrealistic book mpg figures. They may last just as long as the last gen, but its too earl to say really.t

Looking back in time, until the likes of the XUD, diesels were terrible - noisy, dirty, smoky and unrefined - the XUD was a massive step forward in diesel refinement and performance, and was regarded as one of the best in the world. Everything else looked prehistoric. Things are catching up now however and it is a little out of date, but Ive seen nothing yet that outlasts it, like mentioned above.

knighty - the mpg on LPG isnt that bad - a mate of mine has a V8 ford explorer and it does about 2mpg less - when I get the kit fitted to the activa I have been told to expect 1-2mpg less, so it makes great sense for me, when the bastard thing barely manages 20mpg on the current turbo!

LPG for diesel isnt really a proper conversion though - youre still burning diesel the whole time to actually burn the gas. It does give more power though.

The lack of a throttle on a diesel engine cant help much Id imagine.

You know they could have got that power and way more torque from a slightly modified scania 164 engine - and a hell of a lot more to boot.

Then there is the slight matter of it being 16 litres.

You could wring that out of a 144 and maybe a 124.