[s204speed]

I have been hearing more and more about the 335d as newspapers and car mags alike start to get fired up about it; assuming the 335d sells is it safe to assume bmw will bring a 135d over?

BMW quite aptly describes the 3.0-liter, twin-turbocharged, 282-hp engine as a “sporting diesel.” There’s some 428 lb-ft of torque lying in wait, equaling than the hallowed Corvette, yet the 335d will still return an estimated 33 mpg on the freeway, a much better number than recorded in the real world by many so-called economy cars.

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...eature?cid=286

[mistermojorizin]

maybe. i hear they chip the 335d to make like 500ft lb of torque. With all that torque, all it can manage in a quarter is 13 secs, though. So i doubt it would have that performance appeal for me.

[123D-M]

Not 135d, it will be the 123d if anything. This car already has the same torque as the 135i and the engine is lighter than the 35i. Plenty of chipping potential as well.

[amdmaxx]

Ye, I'd be happy with 123d in USA..
Tons of torque..

[Jack in Jax]

Don't miss the 123d review - written by an English Roundel columnist - in the September issue. He does a nice job of comparing (and contrasting) the 123d hatch & coupe with the 135i coupe. And he does indeed rave about the 123d...and not just WRT its much better fuel mileage.

Related to this 'd' topic, is anyone else finding the value equation for choosing diesel fuel to be weak? Here in St. Pete we watched the recent gasoline price (87 Octane) drop from ~$4.00/gal to ~$3.55/gal while the diesel price remained at about $4.25/gal throughout. Diesel pricing doesn't seem to be responding nearly as much to lowered oil prices. And when I worked out the payback provided by the better mileage BMW claims for the 335d - offset by the estimated $2K price premium for the 'd' engine - it takes 4-5 years (depends on assumptions) before the 'd' mileage begins to pay off.

Having said that, the 123d mileage benefit seems to be comparatively much better (when compared to the 135i's mileage) and the 123d's engine price premium is likely to be significantly lower.

Jack

[123D-M]

Do you have a link to the review? I'd be interested.

I see your point on payback. In Europe diesel is always quite a lot cheaper than petrol, usually around €0.30 difference. So that combined with the lower consumption makes it much more attractive. Also, you get taxed based on CO2 output in a lot of European countries so again, diesel is more attractive.

It's hard to understand how diesel can be more expensive than petrol. There is less refining required to produce diesel so theoretically it should cost less. It seems the taxes on diesel are to blame. Certainly in Australia taxes are the reason that diesel costs more than petrol.

Clean diesel technology combined with the lower consumption and the joy of driving a modern turbo-diesel make them a no-brainer here.

123d base price here is about the same as the 125i/128i, so yes, quite a lot cheaper.

[Jack in Jax]

123D:

The Roundel is published in paper and is on-line in full page-by-page digital format at bmwcca.org BUT only available via member log-in. (A sample issue in digital format is available there, for reading or downloading).

Yes, we have purchased diesel in 17 different European countries & island groups in the past 5 years and - every single time - we were thankful we were burning diesel rather than petrol.

Jack

[warmtoes]

Originally Posted by 123D-M

Do you have a link to the review? I'd be interested.

I see your point on payback. In Europe diesel is always quite a lot cheaper than petrol, usually around €0.30 difference. So that combined with the lower consumption makes it much more attractive. Also, you get taxed based on CO2 output in a lot of European countries so again, diesel is more attractive.

It's hard to understand how diesel can be more expensive than petrol. There is less refining required to produce diesel so theoretically it should cost less. It seems the taxes on diesel are to blame. Certainly in Australia taxes are the reason that diesel costs more than petrol.

There was an article about this in a C&D a little while back. The reason it is like this in NA is that the refineries here are setup to produce a lot more gasoline per barrel of oil compared to diesel so it ends up being a supply/demand issue that makes diesel higher than gasoline rather than the cost of creating it.

They noted that if NA goes big on the diesel car bandwagon we may see even higher diesel prices which would effectively offset the advantage in fuel economy if they cannot change over the refineries fast enough.

[123D-M]

Makes sense I guess. Economies of scale don't work so well on diesel for NA. Other way around here. Over 75% of new cars sold in Belgium are diesel.

[Nixon]

Originally Posted by warmtoes

There was an article about this in a C&D a little while back. The reason it is like this in NA is that the refineries here are setup to produce a lot more gasoline per barrel of oil compared to diesel so it ends up being a supply/demand issue that makes diesel higher than gasoline rather than the cost of creating it.

They noted that if NA goes big on the diesel car bandwagon we may see even higher diesel prices which would effectively offset the advantage in fuel economy if they cannot change over the refineries fast enough.

That's part of the story. If US oil companies cracked oil the way the Europeans do, it would increase diesel supply quite a bit here in the US.

But it has also been noted that there would have to be a massive increase in the number of high fuel-economy diesel cars before they would cause the slightest increase in current heavy trucking/train/industrial/ag diesel fuel consumption numbers. Small economic passenger diesel commuter cars just don't burn that much fuel compared to an 18-wheeler that drives for hours and hours every day at ~6 mpg.

But it brings up a bigger question of what WILL happen to the price of diesel when the new CAFE regulations start kicking in? Cars WILL be much more fuel efficient, meaning fewer barrels of oil will need to be refined to fuel them. Fewer barrels means there will be less diesel being produced too. Add on the possible impacts of alt. fuels and drive trains on passenger car gasoline consumption (pure-electric vehicles, E85 fuels, natural gas vehicles, etc) and diesel fuel supplies may end up being a serious problem a decade from now.

Hopefully biodiesel from non-food crop sources like algae will be on-line by then.


As far as a 135d, I don't see that happening anytime soon. BMW can't even keep up with their current 123d demand. The waits in Europe for a 123d are reported to be fairly long. I can't see them building a 135d for the US market while sales of the 123d are doing so well. I also can't see BMW introducing it into the US while they can't meet the current delivery demands in the markets they already market the 123d to.

I'm still wishing for a 123d here in the US because it would be the only RWD high-performance car in the US that competes with the wimpy hybrids for fuel economy. BMW should be able to bring it here fairly quickly with a few emissions tweaks. BMW will need to make the same tweaks to meet the upcoming EURO 5 emission requirements anyways.

[warmtoes]

I like the idea of biodiesel from algae as well. Why would I want to burn my food?

I think we'll see high performance 4 cylinders in BMW's before we get the diesel engines.

[Nixon]

Originally Posted by warmtoes

I like the idea of biodiesel from algae as well. Why would I want to burn my food?

Yea, I leave that to my wife!

[warmtoes]

Originally Posted by Nixon

Yea, I leave that to my wife!

Your lucky she doesn't read this forum. :biggrin: