Thinking that Europe standards are correct is questionable, I fine Must products over engineered and under develop. the Standard of manufacturing and production is questionable at best, that's not saying everything, but if you work on overseas engines you will find the tolerances and spec's that are acceptable in Europe would fail here.
Example, a Water pump on the Mercedes is 4-6hrs labor and $600-$800 , The 6.7 Cummins $200.00 and 20 minutes labor, and I've replace many Mercedes pumps and it looks to be about the same life span.
The 3.0 Failure rate on rotating mass is 10 times more likely (Minimum rate or minimum acceptably ) than any diesel produces in N/A. It looks like the rest of the issues are par.
I do not think that saying the failure rate is 10x more likely true to fact. At the last posting of failures and it was a Canadian post of stat. I read, it showed it was 1 in 1000 and that was almost the same failure rate of most other diesels. Remember that failure rate does not mean a totally bricked engine. some or just minor repairs but causes down time to the customer.
I have never seen a shop charge 20 minutes in cost, they go by the book on the time need to do repair. and the minimum is an hour, so yes may be quicker to replace the cummings water pump. Possibly so. I am a cummings person, I wish they took the small BT4 in line and used it as it is already proven and is the exact same as the 6 cylinder missing 2 cylinders, I believe it is north of a 4L in size now. This engine is used in a lot of different deployed uses. Gen units, pump units, some deliver trucks, machinery, etc.
Let's be real clear on the GM dropping their project for the VM 3.0L diesel due to collapse of company and the bailout. But, with that said Dodge Ram at the time was also working on the Cummings project for their 1500 when again collapse and despair of the auto industry, they stopped the small cummings project. So, the industry comes back and Ram is owned by FCA and of course they used the VM 3.0L for a lot of reasons, one cost, it was almost completely developed, second they wanted to sell the engine with their suppliers, not an American engine.
Now along comes Nissan and snaps up the rest of the development of the cummings engine which dodge ram had jointly funded with cummings. Nissan was smart for taking the cummings offering, FCA RAM used their own suppliers offerings, and GM used an in house Duramax hybrid offering of there own.
GM did not drop VM as bad engine, Ram did not drop cummings, both car companies where in financial collapse and abandoned the projects. They were developing and when they were viable companies again everybody used what was financial beneficial to them.
Look into the development of the VM go to their sight and read it and you will certainly find it was a GM CTS Cadillac development, the same with cummings go to the articles of them developing the small block cummings and you will see directly from cummings it started with Dodge Ram, but now it is a Nissan offering.
I would certainly not down play the specs. of a European engine and its tolerances. I have had crews around the world and we used many different types of engines, even a lot of air cooled Deutz diesels and some Nissan diesels. I have read a lot of specs when purchasing and as far as specs go, they do not have different specs for machining and tolerance for Europe vs the US, that is just factually not true. There may be variation in compression, emission equipment, but not rotating mass, turbo's specs, cylinder and ring tolerance. You will find that cummings has licensed a few Chinese's company to produce and distribute their commercial use engines for a lot of Asia, Chongqing Machinery & Electric
Co., Ltd and DongFeng or just a couple. But they are built to Cummings specs. and must meet their specs or lose the contract. They all ran very well, very little smoke when put under load, usually a small amount as the RPM's dropped as they would fuel heavier to recover from a immediate heavy load request. these were commercial use. There are so many different camps on diesel and diesel failures of all brands. From Turbo's going down, oil coolers leaking, spun bearings, water pumps, injector pumps and on and on and on.
The actual failure rate was about 1 in 1000 and the industry they used to show it against, remember that was the entire industry not any particular make the entire industry should .85 in 1000. So, yes it is a higher failure rate than the industry and you can say it is a 17% higher failure rate.
1-.85=.15/.85=.176 or 17.6% sound high.
Really guys 1 in 1000 are almost one (.85) in 1000. at the end of the day 100 units vs 85 units in every 100,000 units. Now to go directly to the small cummings, I have no idea, too new, but the ford powerstroke has had several years with really bad problems and over came them, even their transmission where devastating in the mid 2000's. a 10 cent seal on the tranny going out, but you would have to lift the truck cab off of the frame to repair, out of service for 1-3 weeks depending on you dealer.
So, we can sit here and have a real conversation on actual catastrophic engine failures of ecodiesel and in reality there really is no other engine that competes with it in size and power with any history. so what do you compare it too? The duramax, powerstroke, cummings, it is just not the same type of diesel or the same type of power plant.
Now with all of that said, we know that 3/4 or 1 ton's and larger, do not have to show fuel economy and they actually have a different environmental impact. Remember the cummings is 6.7 liter and has 370-385 hp and 800-900 ft lbs torque depending on which offering and tune. The ecodiesel has 240Hp 420 ft. lbs torque produces 80 hp per liter and only 104 ft lbs torque per liter. in comparison the cummings 6.7 produces 57.5 Hp per liter a little low in comparison to the ecodiesel but it supplies 134 ft. lbs of torque per liter, now that is raw power, size has its advantages and rotating mass helps. You can tune for higher HP and lower Torque or the reverse or somewhere in the middle. The 3.0L is tuned to deliver more hp and less torque as you need hp to help get the truck out of it's own way, but still has enough torque to perform well under load for its size. Still a little turbo lag, the variable vane turbo does its best on that front but maybe a slightly larger turbo with 2 stage variable could deliver better response and more torque, but it is also about cost. I wish they would come out with variation of the engine you could choose.
I have no way to answer the concerns about the failures of the ecodiesel, but this 3.0L engine failure rate is only out of the norm by a little in comparison to the industry and only 2 years of USA market experience vs others with Decades of experience. Remember the only people we hear from on these forums are the people who are looking for answers on their failed or failing engine. You have to understand the concerns and complaint are exacerbated just by the sheer number of negative failure complaints on the forums vs. the real world. What about the other 99,900 units that are doing just fine. We do not hear the good stuff at the same rate as bad stuff resonates much deeper.
As my dad told me, 1000 Ata-boys(pats on the back) are wiped out by one awe sh*t. Look thru all ecodiesel forums and the motor failures reports seem excessive and in reality it is not. Bad stuff always dominates in these forums as people are looking for answers, I understand. As a forum do we really get proportionate comments of how well the trucks or doing, not even close.
Mine for all intensive purposes is doing very well, now that could change tomorrow and I could be one of those disproportionate negative comments/complaints.
I would be interested if anybody can find that old report or if there is a new report on the ecodiesel, the only study I saw came out of Canada, but it used the North American sales and repair figures, so US and Canada were combined in the study or I should say report, it really was not a study it was an actual report produced either by the industry or by a Canadian agency. It's been a year since I read that report.
Once again I have over run my comments. I thank everybody for their patients.
