By
BARRY LAKE
19 June 2006
DaimlerChrysler’s German forebears, Daimler
and Chrysler, were both staunch and active supporters of diesel engines
in the early years of the 20th century. It was Karl Benz, in fact, who
first developed Rudolf Diesel’s oil-burning concept into a workable
engine. And Daimler followed closely behind.
A decade after the two companies
combined, in 1936, Daimler-Benz created the first diesel-powered
production passenger car. Since then, the company has always been at the
forefront of the development of diesel engines for passenger vehicles.
So it is hardly a surprise that the
latest incarnation of the company, DaimlerChrysler, has just introduced
diesel power as an option on three more of its models: the recently
introduced R-Class wagon, the B-Class compact car and the luxury
Chrysler 300C.
The 300C is especially significant, being
the first diesel engine in today’s under-$100,000 luxury-car class in
Australia.
The Chrysler has a 3.0-litre V6
common-rail diesel (CRD) engine with aluminium cylinder heads and block,
and a variable-geometry turbocharger. Its performance figures are closer
to those of the 5.7-litre hemi-V8 version than to the base-model
3.5-litre V6 petrol-powered model and it is priced at around $2000 less
than the top model.
In terms of fuel economy, however, the
diesel uses only about two-thirds as much fuel as the V8 and more than
25 per cent less than the slower 3.5 litre V6 petrol engine. Overall
(average of city and highway driving) consumption is just 8.2 litres per
100 km for the diesel, compared to 11.1 L/100 for the petrol V6 and 12.1
L/100 for the 5.7-litre V8.
Acceleration figures for the diesel are
impressive, the car taking 8.6 seconds to accelerate from standstill to
100 km/h, compared to 6.8 seconds for the gutsy V8 and 9.9 seconds for
the 3.5 litre petrol V6.
The Mercedes-Benz R 320 CDI wagon has a
3.0-litre V6 turbocharged CDI engine with four valves per cylinder and
variable geometry turbocharger that provides this rather heavy vehicle
(it weighs around the same as the Chrysler 300C) with fuel consumption
of 9.3 L/100km under Australian Design Rules testing.
So far, the big seller in the recently
introduced R-Class range has been the R500 with V8 petrol engine, but
Managing Director of the Mercedes Car Group, Horst von Sanden, has said
that predictions suggest the diesel powered version will now take over
the mantle for this model.
The R 320 CDI accelerates from zero to
100 km/h in 8.8 seconds.
Perhaps the biggest pointer to how
committed the company is to diesel power is the smaller B-Class example,
the B180 CDI. This four-cylinder, four valves per cylinder diesel engine
uses an official ADR-test average of just 6.2 litres of fuel per 100
kilometres to propel this larger sibling of the nifty A-Class.
For the 0-100 km/h dash, the B-Class
diesel’s claimed figure is 11.3 seconds.
The big story with all three of these new
models is fuel consumption and, although diesel fuel in Australia still
is more expensive than petrol, the reduced fuel use offsets this cost by
a considerable margin.
To demonstrate this ability,
DaimlerChrysler ran a fuel efficiency challenge in the mountains of the
Victorian Alps for the three new diesel models. While the best
performing drivers used some extreme measures to gain eye-opening
figures, even the more normally driven vehicles produced some impressive
numbers.
The diesel powered Chrysler 300C for
example - and don’t forget this is a large luxury vehicle that sells
against Holden Statesman/Caprice and Ford Fairlane/LTD - returned
figures of 7.0 litres per 100 km on a testing, narrow, winding, steep
and sometimes gravel-surfaced road over the mountain range. On the
relatively flat run to the finish at Albury Airport - which included the
peak-hour traffic and traffic lights of Wodonga and Albury - the big
300C achieved 6.6 L/100km.
Sales of diesel powered vehicles in
Australia have really taken off in the past 12 months and the
introduction of models like these from DaimlerChrysler can only
accelerate this trend. The modern diesel is a far different beast from
the noisy, dirty diesels of old, and now appeals to a far wider range of
buyers, particularly as the price of fuel creeps ever higher.
