mercedes new 6.9 eating 4 cylinder diesel.

[Big_Richard]

http://paultan.org/archives/2008/04/11/new-mercedes-benz-om651-twin-turbodiesel/

500Nm of torque @ 1600RM from 2.1 litres.  Not bloody bad at all.

[WGB]

- When they can give it a power band wider than the attention span of a kid with ADHD (I'm being unkind to the kids - at least they can be helped).

- When diesel isn't 40% dearer than unleaded.

- When they finally make a 4 cylinder diesel that is as quiet and as smooth in reality as all the written hype is trying to tell us it is.

My wife's ML320CDI is really quite civilised - even though it can't rev like my ML500 it has reasonable mid-range pull - but it is a V6 and we have just had two weeks in a C220CDI while it was getting it's rear paw fixed.

Both of us were very happy to give it back - noisy, twitchy handling, totally uninteresting to drive (except for the excitement engendered by the twitchy steering) and wouldn't have been much cheaper to buy if it was optioned up as much as "She who must be obeyed's" ML is.

The fuel consumpton was 8.0 Litres/100km which was OK but an ML 320 CDI is only a little over 10 litres/100km over the same terrain and my previous E320 Petrol could manage the high 10's so a C350 petrol would probably cover the same distance at less cost and with some real performance.

If we get the new direct injection petrol engines with the correct petrol available in Australia so that they can be tuned correctly the fuel consumption will be the same as these "Diesel Stationary Engines" with less complexity and the ability to rev like a real car engine should.

Bill