chief_wiggum
Member
- :
- 2008.5 Mazdaspeed3-2010 Mazda5 GT
From here http://blog.caranddriver.com/next-mazdaspeed-3-could-go-diesel/ -- color me skeptical.
A pretty big-deal little tidbit slipped out during the recent Mazda technology forum we attended: the company is tinkering with the idea of a diesel powertrain for the next-gen Mazdaspeed 3. And this came straight from Robert Davis, Mazda USA senior VP of product development, who is one of the key guys making these decisions for the U.S. market.
He alleviated some of our skepticism with a few details. First, he says that the younger crowd that is buying the Speed 3 doesn’t have a negative perception of diesels. They likely weren’t around, or were too young to remember the dark days in the 1970s and ‘80s, when diesels got their bad reputation for stinking and smoking. When someone says “diesel” to these people, they instead think of modern and very clean Audi/VWs, BMWs, and Mercedes.
Davis also promised that, even if the Speed 3 did get a diesel powertrain, “performance wouldn’t be degraded,” and that “it’s going to take more than a 190-hp version of the diesel to make that happen” (referring to the fact that a Speedified diesel would have a state of tune significantly higher than the new, 2.2-liter Sky diesel that we drove at the event). Of course, diesels inherently make a ton of torque, something the torque-steering Speed 3 doesn’t really need any more of. Plus, we like the rorty sound of the current, heavily boosted four-cylinder, something that would certainly be lost, or at least watered-down, with a diesel.
We’re still not convinced. Consider the best example of a performance diesel that’s sold in the U.S. today, the BMW 335d. It makes so much torque (425 lb-ft) that it’s largely unusable, the diesel model isn’t nearly as quick as the 335i, and the fuel-economy benefit of the diesel is, of course, eroded when pumping up the power.
But nothing’s been decided yet. And Mazda officials also confirmed that there’s already work being done to add a turbocharger to the Sky gasoline engine for a future high-powered application, such as a Speed variant.
A pretty big-deal little tidbit slipped out during the recent Mazda technology forum we attended: the company is tinkering with the idea of a diesel powertrain for the next-gen Mazdaspeed 3. And this came straight from Robert Davis, Mazda USA senior VP of product development, who is one of the key guys making these decisions for the U.S. market.
He alleviated some of our skepticism with a few details. First, he says that the younger crowd that is buying the Speed 3 doesn’t have a negative perception of diesels. They likely weren’t around, or were too young to remember the dark days in the 1970s and ‘80s, when diesels got their bad reputation for stinking and smoking. When someone says “diesel” to these people, they instead think of modern and very clean Audi/VWs, BMWs, and Mercedes.
Davis also promised that, even if the Speed 3 did get a diesel powertrain, “performance wouldn’t be degraded,” and that “it’s going to take more than a 190-hp version of the diesel to make that happen” (referring to the fact that a Speedified diesel would have a state of tune significantly higher than the new, 2.2-liter Sky diesel that we drove at the event). Of course, diesels inherently make a ton of torque, something the torque-steering Speed 3 doesn’t really need any more of. Plus, we like the rorty sound of the current, heavily boosted four-cylinder, something that would certainly be lost, or at least watered-down, with a diesel.
We’re still not convinced. Consider the best example of a performance diesel that’s sold in the U.S. today, the BMW 335d. It makes so much torque (425 lb-ft) that it’s largely unusable, the diesel model isn’t nearly as quick as the 335i, and the fuel-economy benefit of the diesel is, of course, eroded when pumping up the power.
But nothing’s been decided yet. And Mazda officials also confirmed that there’s already work being done to add a turbocharger to the Sky gasoline engine for a future high-powered application, such as a Speed variant.
