What do we know about the Duramini?

z31maniac said:

Fueled by Caffeine said:

a quick Google search shows MSRP's in the 50's for these?  insert sad trombone...

 

 

Ugh. 

Why is the "MSRP" of new trucks so frequently brought up on this board? New trucks NEVER sell for MSRP or anywhere close to it. 

Example: This morning on the way to work there is a Dodge dealer down here offering $14k off MSRP.........FOURTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS off MSRP. Ford and Chevy routinely offer $8-10k off MSRP on their trucks. 

Even in 2011 when I bought my crew cab Frontier Pro-4X, the dealership not only brought the truck in from another dealer out of state (that ended up having a couple of small extras I didn't want) and I paid $7500 off MSRP with a fair trade-in on my Mazdaspeed 3. 

The dealers up here in Canada have a sticker that they put on the trucks that basically says, "We aren't even going to try to sell it to you for MSRP!!"

Right now before negotiation they are offering $11K off MSRP.  

No Time said:

Is the fuel economy enough to offset the price difference at the pump?

Or is there a significant increase in payload or towing with the diesel to justify the cost?

I know I could google it, but the economy on the window sticker doesn’t always translate to real world. 

I really like the idea of a small diesel truck that will pull better than my Frontier, but I end up thinking about the cost and turn down the idea.  I'll pay a few more dollars for gas now rather than have a bigger payment for a new(er) vehicle.  But that argument can be made for anything.

Trucks of this size are super common to find out side of the United States, maybe with the diesel decline going on in Europe we'll be a market they try to capitalize on?  If you have the engines and we like trucks...

airwerks said:

Duratec swapped mini pics or it didn't happen.

 

Wait, that's not what we're talking about?!?!

I was expecting a Duratec powered Mini thread so I had been ignoring this thread on purpose.

Jaynen said:

I mean my 2004 F-150 supercrew 4x4 I think had 8300 or so with a 5.4 v8 because the 4.1 gears were somewhat less common? and it got 16mpg all day.

 

Also in case anyone isn't aware. DEF is super cheap at Walmart. Its like 8 bucks for 2 gallon jugs

Anybody who spends $50k for a pickup truck has no reason to complain about spending a few bucks every couple thousand miles.

2 stroke oil is $10/quart for anything decent, and I get maybe 400 miles from that in the RX-7.  But please, continue to whine about how DEF is wrecking your wallet.

No Time said:

Is the fuel economy enough to offset the price difference at the pump?

Or is there a significant increase in payload or towing with the diesel to justify the cost?

I know I could google it, but the economy on the window sticker doesn’t always translate to real world. 

If you get the Diesel, the towing capacity goes up to the same level as a six cylinder Porsche cute-ute, apparently.  I think some old Volvos were around that level too.

rslifkin said:

In reply to z31maniac :

I wouldn't necessarily say that about some of the turbo stuff.  The 1.5 turbo in a newer Civic gets within 3 - 4 real-world mpg on the highway of a 10 year older Prius from what I've seen.  That's pretty darn good. 

And the ecoboost F-150s do burn less gas than the NA V8s.  But only when you're driving it around unloaded and not using all of the power.  Load it up and work it hard and it's just as much fuel (if not more) to make the needed power. 

The smaller turbo engines are significantly better on light load efficiency than the bigger engines due to reduced pumping losses when you're only asking for 25hp. 

Exactly.  And the ability to run 10-11:1 compression with turbos only makes this light load efficiency even better.  The turbo gives you the power for the 1-5% that you need it and the smaller engine size gives you the economy for the 95-99% of the time that you don't.  I could clear 35mpg with my old 1.9t Volvo without trying and clear 40 with minimal effort.  That is on par with the 1.8l Golf I had that weighed a whole lot less and had maybe half the peak power.

I'm still curious as to why hybrid pickups never really took off as an idea.  There's a lot of dead space in and under a pickup so there'd be no real space detriment, it's not as if people care about the added weight in a truck to begin with, you could get a lot of instant torque for towing and the regen from braking while towing should be out of sight, and the kicker is that for WORK trucks, you can have AC power outlets built in.  110, 220, three phase even.  No need to haul generators around to jobsites when one's built in to every truck.

In reply to Knurled. :

Hybrid pickups would work for the people who don't use them much as trucks, but for heavy towing, etc. the continuous power demands are too large for a hybrid to save any significant amount of fuel.  Plus, adding all that extra weight to the truck means you can't carry as much weight in the truck.  Keep in mind, the bigger non-dually pickups only carry less weight in the bed than a dually because they're running up against the tire weight limits (so there's no room to add hybrid bits without giving up payload capacity). 

In reply to rslifkin :

Good points, but for people who need to haul around generators to jobsites, the effective payload capacity (weight and volume) would go up because they would not need to haul around a generator and its own fuel supply.

I'm not saying it would be a huge market.  But 2% of a million trucks a year is still 20,000.

And, from what I have seen, GVWR and towing capacities are just a theory.  Some of most heavily loaded down vehicles I see are half ton vehicles...

Gm did build hybrid pickups. They were neat! Some included AC 110v outlets. The hybrid SUVs averaged 20mpg.. CITY! Something like a 60% improvement over non-hybrid. But, the highway numbers weren't any better than non-hybrid (they still had big engines) and even if 20mpg is a tremendous improvement, it's still not an eye-catching sales pitch. 

Ram just went to a mild hybrid system on most of its new half tons. They already have high current inverters and stop-start, so adding 'jobsite generator' functionality would not be too difficult. Certainly no more than silly things they've already done like putting a refrigerated cooler in the floorboard. I think it's mostly a question of a big disconnect between the people who find such things useful enough to pay for them and manufacturers not willing to take the first step on it. I doubt people are clamoring for it and even if the manufacturer built it they may be unwilling to spend the marketing money to connect the dots with the customers who don't have the technical knowledge to realize such things are possible (even easy?).

Furious_E said:

Well, I can tell you that the cross member that supports the DEF tank is probably the single highest quality, most well-made component in all of the domestic auto industry 

Seriously though, I did some research on them a while back out of curiosity and didn't come across any huge Achilles heels. I agree that the timing belt interval, and really its presence in the first place on a diesel, is slightly disconcerting. It's apparently an Isuzu motor that's been around for a while in foreign markets, so while there isn't a whole lot of data available in this country, there ought to be some knowledge out there. 25mpg and 7k+ towing is definitely an intriguing combo. 

Actually, this engine is quite different than the 3.0 Isuzu motor put in the older Holden Colorado. The 2.8 is a VM motori Italian design made in Thailand, and doesn’t share the bulletproof rep that the Isuzu motor has. The motor is related to the 2.8 diesels found in some older Jeeps, and the Dodge ecodiesel is also a VM motori design.

Vigo said:

Gm did build hybrid pickups. They were neat! Some included AC 110v outlets. The hybrid SUVs averaged 20mpg.. CITY! Something like a 60% improvement over non-hybrid. But, the highway numbers weren't any better than non-hybrid (they still had big engines) and even if 20mpg is a tremendous improvement, it's still not an eye-catching sales pitch. 

Ram just went to a mild hybrid system on most of its new half tons. They already have high current inverters and stop-start, so adding 'jobsite generator' functionality would not be too difficult. Certainly no more than silly things they've already done like putting a refrigerated cooler in the floorboard. I think it's mostly a question of a big disconnect between the people who find such things useful enough to pay for them and manufacturers not willing to take the first step on it. I doubt people are clamoring for it and even if the manufacturer built it they may be unwilling to spend the marketing money to connect the dots with the customers who don't have the technical knowledge to realize such things are possible (even easy?).

Weren't the GM hybrid SUVs the ones that independent testing found that they got got the same or worse mileage as a non-hybrid?

Chrysler also built a handful of Durango and Aspen hybrids. And by handful, I mean it. Like less than 1000

No Time said:

Is the fuel economy enough to offset the price difference at the pump?

Or is there a significant increase in payload or towing with the diesel to justify the cost?

I know I could google it, but the economy on the window sticker doesn’t always translate to real world. 

I did some recreational mathematics last night and with current local prices for regular vs diesel at 6 mpg better fuel economy for the diesel the fuel savings over 100,000 miles is like $1100 for the diesel.  At that point I did not look to see how much more the diesel engine adds to the trucks initial purchase price because for me 100,000 miles would probably be 9-10 years of ownership and I assume the diesel has to be at least $3k more...

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to z31maniac :

OK.. $14K off of $54K.. still a $40K truck.. Sad trombone stands....

exactly. With all rebates aside I paid 13k less for a new Ecodiesel Ram apples to apples. They’re cool trucks but not for that price point.

I have a '16 model Minimax Colorado. I didn't figure that I'd really save anything on fuel + Def over the gas, for me it was the way that the diesel made torque. I drove the gas and diesel and just liked the low RPM grunt from the diesel. I really like the range that the diesel offers as well. Last highway trip I went over 520 bladder busting miles between fill ups. 

Weren't the GM hybrid SUVs the ones that independent testing found that they got got the same or worse mileage as a non-hybrid?

Under what conditions? I could design a test to generate that result if i wanted it, so i don't doubt that someone else did. However, road tests when they were new showed that they did what they claimed, which was ~20mpg avg. 

My armchair quarterback opinion is that they just played it too safe and ended up with something that didn't stand out except to people who already knew what hybrids were (and probably weren't buying full size SUVs anyway). They retained the big engines, so they were just as fast as the top-spec non-hybrid models, and they had the near-identical highway mpg to show for it. They could have designed them with smaller engines, although there was something of a lack of appealing options in the v6 realm as GM's 4.3 had been carryover for 10 years already and a full generation behind the LS, and Chrysler's 3.7 was generally underwhelming. But then they'd have to sell a hybrid that was slower than non-hybrids and couldn't tow as much. Unlike Lexus, they also didn't slap it into their range-topping luxury models that already used similar transmission architecture and sell it as 'premium tech'. What you're left with is a 2wd 3-row that gets 20mpg average and doesn't stand out from its stablemates in any other way. And you know what 2wd 3-row also averages 20mpg? ANY GIVEN MINIVAN! Too emasculating? No problem! Take your Chevy Uplander, ruin the rear doors, make it look like an SUV, and boom! Traverse/Acadia, smash hit! 

In reply to Vigo :

GM has a reputation for making really crummy hybrids, like the Ecotec "hey, let's motor the alternator!" hybrid.  It's mind-boggling that the same company that engineered THAT came up with the Volt.

If you haven't seen it yet, I am not kidding.  They have a really big alternator that will drive the engine when pulling from a stop, and that's pretty much it.  They made a really goofy belt tensioner that can accomodate the alternator/motor alternately being driven and driving the engine via the belt.  Other than that, it's pretty much just a regular Ecotec/automatic drivetrain, with zero of the advantages that a Prius-type setup would give you.

IIRC the truck hybrids had the motor built into the trans but it still kinda required the engine to be running all the time.

The Chrylser mild hybrids use a funky powered alternator setup like that too.  And the early Honda hybrids had the engine running all the time when moving (engine was mechanically connected to the wheels unlike a Toyota hybrid).  So there have been a lot of variations on how to put it all together. 

GM has a reputation for making really crummy hybrids, like the Ecotec "hey, let's motor the alternator!" hybrid.  It's mind-boggling that the same company that engineered THAT came up with the Volt.

 

If you haven't seen it yet, I am not kidding.  They have a really big alternator that will drive the engine when pulling from a stop, and that's pretty much it.  They made a really goofy belt tensioner that can accomodate the alternator/motor alternately being driven and driving the engine via the belt.  Other than that, it's pretty much just a regular Ecotec/automatic drivetrain, with zero of the advantages that a Prius-type setup would give you.

That's the system RAM just implemented that i mentioned. I just refer to it as 'mild hybrid'; i think GM called it BAS (belt assist ...something).  To me, it's a perfectly good idea. We already have a motor (starter) and a generator (alternator) on the car anyway. It makes sense to combine them into one unit AND make it brushless which addresses probably 75+% of starter and alternator failures (electrical contact points, while windings and bearings fail more rarely).  Stop-start itself is kinda meh depending on the way the vehicle is used, but being able to electrify the AC compressor has a lot of benefits. Having the torque fill for heavy acceleration purposes is actually pretty low on its list of benefits. With E-throttle and an electric motor for torque fill you can reduce the emissions/efficiency problems of throttle tip-in by giving E-torque first and gradually transitioning to engine power. You can also do actual regen braking which is really nice and also extends the life of service brakes (another reduction in service/breakdowns). Manufacturers have also been wanting to go to a 48volt system for a long time anyway, and this goes hand in hand with that.  The belt is way beefier but ever since the OEMs changed to that new belt material like 10 years ago it seems like belts last practically forever now anyway. 

I'm totally on board with it. You can slap it on almost anything with minimal change to the actual engine/trans and see a whole bunch of benefits.