(first posted 9/14/2016) “There’s an old car driving up behind us,” my wife said as I slowly dozed off in the passenger seat. I unhurriedly looked over my shoulder. “It’s a Caprice,” I said, “…they’re still fairly common.” I closed my eyes again. Then, as it passed us, she calmly added “It’s a diesel.” Quicker than any alarm clock, those words startled me awake. Yes, we got passed by a 35-year-old GM diesel. But life in the slow lane can have its advantages, and briefly seeing this car is one such example.
My photographs of this car are not ideal. I apologize, and promise to take better pictures the next time I see a Caprice diesel. But don’t hold your breath; that time frame might be measured in decades. Caprice diesels were made only between 1980 and 1985 and suffered very high mortality rates. This example is particularly rare, being a 2-door with the high-end Landau package. And it’s still on the road.
When it passed by, my wife noticed the one exterior clue to the car’s engine type – a small “Diesel” badge on the front fender. Notice how the lettering differs from the “Caprice Classic” badge above it? The Diesel badge matches Oldsmobile’s division lettering, and that’s not a coincidence, as this car’s engine was sourced from the Oldsmobile division.
During the late 1970s, GM undertook a somewhat daring foray into the world of diesel-powered cars, and tasked Olds with leading the way. Oldsmobile’s full-size B-bodies received an optional 350-cu. in. diesel engine in the process. It was an interesting concept – mating a full-size 6-passenger car with an efficient diesel engine – and one that, in theory, was perfectly suited to the times. For a brief period, this seemed like a brilliant move, particularly in the wake of the 1979 fuel crisis.
With demand for fuel efficient vehicles surging, GM expanded its full-size diesel offerings to Chevrolet for 1980. The value-oriented Impala/Caprice B-bodies received an optional engine transplant courtesy of the Diesel 350, and offered the right resume for the times – good value, big size, plus excellent economy.
One step up from the bargain Impala, the Caprice (gas or diesel) provided buyers with extra comfort and amenities. The appeal of a Caprice diesel is clear: A traditional American sedan with the fuel mileage of a compact import. As shown in the ad, this car had a theoretical highway cruising range of 918 miles, enough to take it from central Ohio, where I spotted our featured car, to New Orleans without stopping.
Unless it blew a head gasket. And that, unfortunately, is what people remember most about the Olds-sourced 350 diesel. A first-hand review of this engine’s mechanical concerns can be found in this GM Deadly Sin post by Paul N., but to summarize, GM rushed the engine into production, and cut corners in the process. Blown head gaskets (insufficient head bolts couldn’t cope with the diesel’s 22.5:1 compression ratio) were just one of many serious problems reported en masse by customers. The lack of a fuel tank water separator – a major oversight – caused even more maladies.
Making matters worse was that GM dealers were ill-equipped to diagnose or repair diesel engines. Often, customers would have a blown head gasket repaired only to have the same problem a few thousand miles later. It was not uncommon for owners to replace engines multiple times in the same car.
As with many of GM’s false starts in the 1970s/80s, the Diesel 350 improved as years went by. One of the biggest improvements was a strengthened block (called the DX block) introduced with the 1981 models. Gradually, the engine’s initial problems were being addressed.
But by 1981, the die had been cast, and GM diesels quickly developed a horrendous reputation. Magnifying the problem was that the diesel engine was marketed as a premium product. In the ’81 Impala/Caprice line, the diesel was a $695 option ($1,800 in today’s dollars) – adding nearly 10% to the car’s base price.
Our featured car is of course rare because it’s a diesel, but if that weren’t enough, it’s also a Landau Coupe – Landau being the top-line trim package featuring a vinyl roof, wire wheel covers and other upgraded features. Only 6,615 Landau Coupes were made, and diesel production undoubtedly stayed in three digits.
This car wasn’t cheap. Landau coupes started at $7,990, and with the diesel and other options, this car likely carried a sticker upwards of $10,000.
An Internet search revealed that our featured car was sold in 2013. At that time, it was advertised with 79,000 miles and the above interior photo reveals a car in very good condition. The low mileage accounts for part of its unlikely survival, but certainly appropriate maintenance was involved as well. These diesel engines required an owner with thorough knowledge of proper diesel care in order to survive more than a few years. That GM would sell such a car to the general public (where insufficient maintenance should be expected) is as much a blemish on the company’s discretion as the engine itself.
Caprice diesels were slow, as one would expect from a 3,500-lb. car with a 105-hp engine. However, this example had no trouble keeping up with (or passing) traffic. Accelerating from a stop light, the Caprice gave off a plume of black soot, but otherwise the engine type was unobtrusive – even the noise wasn’t nearly as pronounced as I would have expected.
1981 was GM’s peak year of diesel production, with 350,000 of the oil burners being built. At that point, GM optimistically expected 20-25% of its production to be diesels by 1985. Instead, sales fell to 30,000 by 1984, and most GM diesels were discontinued in 1985.
Stories of diesel owners and their tales of endless repairs became legendary. Eventually, GM compensated owners somewhat (one class action lawsuit alone was settled for $22.5 million), but that hardly made amends. GM diesel failures were even noteworthy enough for the local government in Fairfax County, Va. to refund personal property tax payments to owners due to their cars’ plummeting value – a ruling that never occurred before or since. Headlines like the one above are a nightmare scenario for a car company.
The Oldsmobile diesel engine saga cost GM dearly in terms of money and respect. But what suffered the most were diesels. Problems associated with this car’s engine turned Americans off to diesels so completely that to this day it’s a nearly insurmountable task to persuade Americans to buy a diesel passenger car. For such a villain, though, this particular car was very inconspicuous. In fact, had it not been for my wife’s sharp eye, it might have driven right by in the passing lane unnoticed. I bet GM would have loved for its diesels to be less conspicuous 35 years ago.
Photographed in Columbus, Ohio in August 2016.
Related Reading:
Automotive History: 1978 Oldsmobile 5.7L Diesel V8 – GM’s Deadly Sin #34 – Premature Injeculation
Curbside Classic: 1978 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Diesel — In Defense of the Olds 350 Diesel V8 BigOldChryslers
Nice find.
Given the rarity of landau coupes and the rarity of the diesel version this may be one of the last registered in the USA.
The crooked Diesel badge is a nice touch.
Factory, I’m sure.
Crooked badges were a major problem when manufacturers started using foam tape to attach badges, instead of attaching them through pin holes through the panel with back fasteners.
Luckily 35 years later the badges are still on this Caprice. On my Dad’s ’77 Estate Wagon most of the badges barely made 35 days before falling off!
I was going to touch on that as well, but I’m already known for long posts.
The Delta 88 tag on my Dad’s 1977 company car was mounted in a bowed fashion, letting water and dirt behind the tape. It was hanging loose, so I helped it out a bit. It is on my garage wall to this day.
They also used that tape behind a lot of the vinyl anti door ding side mouldings. Those mouldings were so heavy that they regularly fell off our otherwise generally decently built 1978 Caprice. My dad bought rolls of that foam tape, and we periodically cleaned up and reinstalled the mouldings.
Crooked or broken badges. My Malibu’s trunklid “CHEVROLET” badge cracked and broke at some point, jettisoning the “ET” and leaving “CHEVROL” behind. I still have that script, which was taken off the car at one of its many repaints.
Of course that didn’t necessarily improve with time. My Crown Vic has for many years possessed a fractured model badge, split between the c and t. At least it split in a useful place, since whenever the “toria_LX” falls off it will leave the colloquial “Crown Vic”.
The crooked badge, in a different font, is atypical for a company that just didn’t care about doing it right and the diesel disaster is just another, significant example of GM’s on-going 70’s & 80’s missteps, i.e.:
– The 1971 recall of 1965-1970 Chevrolet V8 cars with separating motor mounts (I owned two); deny, deny, deny until NHTSA pressed their hand and Chevy devised a goofy restraining system instead of doing the right thing and replacing the very dangerous, accelerator jamming, mounts
– Vega aluminum blocks with “silicon” cylinder liners and mismatched iron heads – the replacement blocks frequently cracked even sooner than the originals
– Using the justifiably maligned Turbo-hydramatic 200 transmission (as opposed to the tried and true TH 350) in full size V8 cars (such as this Caprice example) – guaranteed to fail right after the warranty expired
– This Olds diesel debacle nicely detailed here
– the Chevy 267 C.I. V8 engine; it was always a bet which would break in two first, the camshaft or the crankshaft?
– Dexcool destruction of intake manifold gaskets on the sub-par 3.4 litre V6 engine – ever see the labor bill for replacing those on a minivan?
– Olds 2.4 litre Quad-Four head gasket disaster
Yeah, they frequently got the problem “fixed” but long after the buying public had lost confidence – it is amazing to me that GM was able to hang on to market share and viability as late as they did (until the 2009 bankruptcy). This approach to business would have driven most other, less deep pocketed companies under a lot sooner.
My ’79 Malibu must be the exception. It’s 267 has 165,00 miles and , aside from using a little oil, is still in great shape with no serious problems from new. Lucky me.
Rick:
Good to hear, I would imagine that you have been specific & careful with maintenance and not abused your Malibu – your 267 is truly an exception!
GM diesels sounded like a room full of monkeys with ball peen hammers banging an anvil. Even non car people would notice and comment. One thing that this engine succeeded in doing was making diesel fuel more expensive than gasoline. Diesel used to be cheaper until it looked like there would be a non commercial need for it and the price rose above that of gasoline and it’s been more expensive ever since. The trucking industry and the government had a big hand in it too but the lousy reputation diesel got plus the higher price guaranteed that diesel would remain truck fuel.
Absolutely, Hardboiled. My uncle had a ’78 Olds Delta 88 with the 350 diesel engine. That metallic rattle every time you pressed the accelerator, not to mention the black soot that would coat about a 12-inch radius around the tailpipe. Keeping the engine warm…that really soured me on GM’s for a while.
The GM 350 diesel has nothing to do with the price of tea in China, or the price of diesel in in the U.S. in 2016. 😉
Diesel did not become consistently more expensive than gas in the U.S. until 2004, about 20 years after GM’s diesel debacle.
The fuel industry blames:
*Higher taxes on diesel (this did start in the ’80s). The rational was that commercial semi-trailer trucks cause more road damage, so the Feds wanted more money from trucking to pay the freight, so to speak.
*Increased demand for diesel in Europe. European politicians pushed diesel for private passenger transportation, resulting in high miles per liter cars, but also a big pollution problem in major cities. Apparently they believed in the clean diesel stuff.
*The U.S. regulators took the opposite approach with diesel, and demand more refining of the fuel to keep sulfer levels down, adding to the cost of diesel in the U.S.
With hindsight, and all things considered, it appears that the U.S. regulators have taken the correct approach to diesel fuel in passenger vehicles.
When the EPA mandated low sulphur fuel in the U.S. it became available for use in other parts of the world where low sulphur was already mandated. Instead of being of no use for the rest of the world it is now at global commodity prices
When I said that the GM diesel made diesel more expensive, I didn’t make myself clear. There were a ton of politics that played into the whole scenario but long story short, Reagan needed highway funds, enacted a fee based revenue raiser on the trucking industry, trucking industry hated it, pushed back, got an increase on diesel fuel tax instead. Government got the money for highways that they wanted, trucking industry got much better user based tax so they were happy. With the GM diesel poisoning the well of public opinion, the public didn’t care if diesel would be taxed more so with the trucking industry happy and NO protest from the gas loving public, we have the situation that we are in now. Had there been 25,000,000 happy GM diesel owners to get outraged it wouldn’t have been such an easy situation to work out.
Low sulfur diesel is the world wide standard and has been for a long time.
In my transportation business, we are finding modern diesels have much longer maintenance intervals and lower fuel consumption. This cuts downtime by at least 50% ; however, Hino, like all things Toyota, has a very rigid maintenance schedule, replacing lots of stuff at intervals. This makes said services expensive, but overall a modern common rail diesel is cheaper to run.
My rule has always been:
Five ton or more, diesel.
Five ton or less, gas.
Low or zero sulphur diesel is very old news it plays hell with injector pump seals on older engines drying them out so you have leaks Moreys diesel treatment or new seals is the choice you have to cure them,
its amazing that GM made such a hash of these engines its not like theyd never made a diesel engine before and good ones at that, trying to do it cheap using a gas block wasnt a good idea.
That requires some interesting assumptions.
GM did more to popularize the diesel as a mainstream U.S. passenger car engine than anybody to date in the ’77-’79 period. Of course, shortly thereafter, they had effectively demonized it.
If GM had simply never done it, there would not have been 25 million happy diesel owners in the mid 1980s, and GM would have been no more responsible than Ford, Chrysler, AMC, Toyota, VW, Mercedes Benz, BMW, etc.
And, anything close to 25 million happy GM diesel owners by 1983 would have required a successful campaign – probably starting in 1970 – producing volumes of long lived, reasonably successful engines, and even repeat buyers of GM diesels. The public was not going to care about diesel unless they actually owned it in mainstream volumes, and that didn’t happen, thanks to the entire auto industry, not just GM.
It is difficult to place any blame on GM’s failed 1977 – 1985 diesel effort for the price of U.S. diesel in 2016, or even 2004 when diesel surpassed gasoline, or in the 1980s when the trucking industry effectively agreed to a diesel tax surcharge – especially considering the tax was hidden for the next 20 years to the average consumer by the rather broad cost advantage of diesel.
I had friends who had a Diesel Jetta in 1983. I was so impressed, I played with the idea of getting one myself. However, I remember diesel was cheaper than gasoline in the late 70’s. By the time my friends bought the Jetta, the situation had flipped flop. That and the poor results of the GM diesel plus the recent VW scandal has hindered any true acceptance of diesel passenger vehicles in the US.
However, on my recent trip to Berlin, I noted that half the passenger vehicles on the road were diesel as well as most of the small delivery vans. What does Europe know that we don’t??
Based on above, diesel ain’t going to happen in the US especially with GM announcing today that the electric Chevy Bolt has a range of 238. That’s where the focus will be in fuel efficiency.
@ 6_Speed_Automatic
I don’t have any detailed summary about Europe and diesel. But, the general outline is that fuel is much more expensive in Europe, so the fuel economy of diesels is very appealing to consumers there.
Tied in to this, the Politicians there have done quite a bit to encourage diesel fuel. The result is a high take rate on diesel cars, at the cost of some pretty nasty pollution in the larger cities.
Diesel here is £1.14.9 per litre. Lead free 95RON £1.139 per litre
You can then do the sums based on your mileage, mpg (my Fiesta diesel will do 55 mpg (UK) without effort),acquisition cost (higher) and maintenance costs (maybe lower?).
Also, remember the punch of the turbo diesel is potentially addictive if you can’t get a V8
The best part about the Olds 350 diesel is how easily they are turned (back?) into one stout gasoline engine. The Olds racers loved them; it was like getting a heavy duty race block from the wrecking yard, instead of special ordered from the performance parts catalog at the dealer parts counter. I knew a guy with a ’84 Pontiac 6000, 4.3 V6 diesel. 3/4 of the Olds 350 diesel. I still have nightmares….
I have seen ONE A-body diesel in my time and it was a Cutlass Ciera pulling a small boat with an outboard motor.
This was in the early 1990s so somebody must have figured out how to make one last.
I, only once, saw a Pontiac 6000 LE diesel. I know it was a diesel because the trunklid badge said so – 6000•LE DIESEL – all in the same font unlike this Caprice diesel. Probably saw a few Cieras with diesels, don’t recall ever seeing a diesel Celebrity or Century though.
I got this Celebrity Diesel in Decatur TX in ’16. So now you’ve seen one, just not in person.
During and after this GM diesel fiasco, I felt sorry for Mercedes, which was heavily into diesel engines at the time.
I imagined a poor Mercedes salesperson trying to convince a customer that the MB engine was nothing at all like the GM diesel.
I wondered why anyone who could afford a Benz would worry about fuel costs enough to put up with sluggish diesel performance. An MB owner answered that he liked its greater simplicity vs., say, the twincam six. Given Mercedes maintenance costs, I could see his point.
I suspect VW, Isuzu, Mercedes, & Peugeot lost few buyers to the Olds debacle, as most probably knew the difference.
Keep in mind that by this time most of the Mercedes diesels were turbocharged, except for the low-end 240D. The 300TD/SD scooted right along (in relative terms for the times), all the way to 110 mph. Not comparable to the Olds 5.7.
The owner I queried long ago had a non-turbo, either a W114 or early W123. Turbos were just what were needed.
Until it failed, which the Turbo in my Dad’s 300SD did, with a loud whine and a big repair bill; and it was still too slow off the line.
That is especially true for the US market.
I hated it when my parents and relatives hired taxicabs when we were holidaying in Germany in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Mostly, we ended up in 200D or 220D, both so far down on the totem pole and without turbochargers. So slow, so noisy, so stinky with cigarette smoke (typical in Germany) and diesel soot, so wrong. The motors clattered so badly that I had to check all of my silver fillings as to ensure none of them were loosened. The frequent shifting made me grateful for automatic gearboxes in American taxicabs!
I can’t imagine the steep trade-off in comfort for durability and significant saving in fuel cost. Back then. I guess I was too spoilt by American luxobarges.
Thankfully, the Germans wised up and tamed the diesel motors. My favourite is 2.1-litre twin-turbocharged diesel motor found in almost all of Mercedes-Benz taxicabs. While they were at it, the taxicabs eventually and thankfully became more luxurious and comfortable.
What you describe is basically the reason that the W126 S-Class never had a diesel engine in Europe. Not “civilized enough” to be under the hood of their flagship.
The W140 was the first S-Class generation that became available with a diesel engine in Europe.
They recently introduced a new 4-cylinder diesel, the OM654. A new inline-6 (welcome back !) 2.9 liter -the OM656- will follow soon.
As an aside, the only sedan with a V8 diesel these days is the Audi A8 4.2 TDI.
Wow, that is one sharp-eyed wife you have! I had forgotten about the Caprice diesel. Everyone in the industry seemed to be toying with diesels in the early 80s, I even remember an Continental Mark VII that briefly came with a BMW sourced diesel.
But beyond Mercedes and VW, nobody else seemed able to crack the code, at least with passenger cars.
When I was in law school in the mid 80s, a lady on the custodial staff bought a diesel Olds 88 coupe. She was surprised how inexpensive it was to buy.
I wonder how long her diesel 88 lasted. I hope she got good use out of it.
Fantastic find! I’ve been hoping to find one for years.
I would have assumed this one had been converted to a gas engine – as many were – given the lack of any visible soot from the exhaust as proof of it being a diesel. But you saw it, so we’ll take your word. Congratulations. 🙂
It could have been converted back to gas, and just running rich on acceleration.
I figured it was unlikely that the car was still a diesel until the author mentioned the soot blast. It would be very difficult to get a transplanted Chevy 305 or 350 gas engine to run rich enough to mistake it for a GM 350 diesel.
On the other hand, get a little deep on the throttle, and the GM 350 diesel will “roll coal” as some of the dopier diesel truck fans say. I was around a LOT of these diesels when GM started offering them, and soot was part of the deal.
It is, in fact, very easy to get a small block V8 rich enough to blow black rich smoke. Marine engines do it quite often; I have seen many transoms where you could not even make out the name of the boat. Mostly due to choke mis-adjustment.
I spend my summers in marinas, and have never seen significant issues with gassers and soot. There are a lot of marine diesels out there, especially on the sort of cruiser class that has a big enough transom to have space for a boat name on the back. There are whole internet discussions on the best way to clean diesel soot off the transom – it’s a major First World problem! 😉
I’d say it would be pretty rare for somebody to let a GM 305 or 350 gas car engine run so poorly that it could be mistaken for a diesel – and we don’t have any sort of inspections where I live.
Finding that hard to swallow….maybe those were actually diesels? 🙂
I also assumed it was a conversion when I first saw it, and was more than surprised to see the plume of soot. We followed it off the highway at an exit, and I heard it accelerate away. It definitely made a diesel rattle — less noisy than I would have guessed, but maybe that was on account of the wide-open spaces.
Or switched to cleaner diesel fuel?
I wonder whether the new clean diesel fuel has helped reducing soot in the older diesel motors. Anyone can confirm that for me?
There was a V8 diesel Chevy for sale on trademe recently original engine, not cheap either but theres at least one still alive in NZ and they werent sold here new somebody imported it.
It’s commercial time ! : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dhrme2kvvIE&spfreload=10
The diesel fiasco is just part of the mystery of GM’s implosion for me. Here was (at the time) the largest car manufacturer in the world. Surely the money was there to hire the best engineers in the world, so I can’t believe it was lack of talent or skills that lead to the Vega sleeveless aluminum engine debacle, the diesels,the under-oil-panned Fieros, the Quad Four problems, the Northstar weakness, and the plastic intake manifold plague. Was there no one willing to fall on his sword and warn the Brass that each of these was doomed to failure? For that matter, did anyone ever get fired for any of these?
I don’t think you can put all the blame on the accountants. Sure, they can take the rap for cheap buttons in the interior and such, but fundamental engineering problems should have been resolved in the design and development process, before the accountants got involved, right?
All I can say is, GM must’ve had some major management rot to fail with a technology mastered by two other of their divisions (DD & EMD). Were they ever invited to design reviews? Even the brightest engineers can’t prevail against foolish higher-ups who won’t admit that the right way is often the painful way.
I can imagine the frustration of the poor engineers who must’ve seen it all coming.
DD and EMD were building totally different engines, large two-strokes with direct injection, plunger pumps, blowers and four exhaust valves. The engineering of those engines has nothing in common with a passenger car indirect-injected, rotary pump diesel except for the fuel they use.
Anyway, at about this time DD was having plenty of issues with its new -92 Series engines. They were rather problem-some for a number of years after being introduced, and never developed the good rep the -71 family.
“Was there no one willing to fall on his sword and warn the Brass that each of these was doomed to failure?”
This sort of thing seems to be an issue at GM (plus plenty of other companies across many industries), a more recent example being the ignition switches.
It seems that adhering to the project plan timeline was more important than delivering a successful product.
The most charitable thought I can offer is, a common management fallacy is assuming that “intellectual” workers’ productivity is as predictable as that of assembly-line workers. Some problems are not merely a matter of time to solve, esp. in the sciences & applied sciences.
I won’t post a link, but there’s currently an early 80’s Bonneville Brougham 2door Diesel on eBay. I stumbled upon it a while back, and in a more recent perusal I see it’s been relisted due to a non-paying bidder. It’s tempting in that “When will I ever have the chance again” way, but then again, why?
And just think! If GM had got this one right, we would have a land swarming with them, just like Dodge did by installing Cummins engines in the pickups. Those ( and I’ve had several) outlast the truck by factor of 3 or 4. In fact, I don’t think you would typically see a old Dodge pickup with 200K miles on a gasser, but the 5.9?…it just keeps going and going! GM could have done the same, but CHOSE not to, in its typical way of cheapskate engineering but marketing them as if they were just as durable as Mercedes Diesels. Yah right! Deadbeats!
I am with Lokki. Mercury Marine used plated bores on their 2 cycle outboard engines for many years. Why? On the Black Max V6’s if it seized, you had to put a sleeve in the bore. Smaller engines, like the 18-25hp twins, had a plated bore with aluminum pistons. Seize one of those? You bore the block, exposing bare aluminum, and the oversize pistons were plated. Just a joke. Iron sleeves in a aluminum block work just fine. Was it engineering stupidity? Bean counters thinking they are saving money? And we DID have all the fundamentals figured out by the late ’50s or so.
I am not sure how the Oldsmobile diesel came to be, but I know one thing they were doing is using as many parts from the existing parts bin to hold down cost. Basically I think this means using existing tooling. For both the Northstar and the diesel engines, the heads are not bolted down quite as securely as they should have been. Perhaps the fault was in someones computer program?
My 78 Olds diesel went 75,000 miles for me without failing. Well expect for the #2 diesel fuel gelling once.
Kind of a shame because a decade earlier Oldsmobile engineers had decided that their version of the 215 Aluminum V8 needed 6 bolts per head as opposed to Buick & Pontiac’s 5. Of course by this time GM was all about homogenous rather than different or better.
I had an ’85 Honda Prelude it went 3x that distance without a problem.
75,000 miles is not even getting started.
75,000 is where I traded it in, not where it failed. It could still be running.
The ’70s vintage GM diesel probably has some part in keeping Americans weary of diesels to this day, but that is probably limited to some of us older folks that also don’t think very highly of turbos thanks to our experience with them during the Reagan years.
Turbos are taking off again in the U.S., but modern diesel has been a tough sell. With diesel fuel and diesel cars more expensive than their gas counterparts, the case for diesel has been very weak. The U.S. also regards diesel as dirty, so folks with an environmental bend generally don’t want it. The few people with an environmental bend that (literally) bought into Volkswagen’s clean diesel are surely turned off for life at this point.
Using the diesel vs. turbo argument, I think it is fair to pass America’s “down on diesel” torch from GM to a combination of VW and high diesel prices.
Americans do buy diesels, so long as they’re in “light” trucks. These have basically replaced the Yank Tank, so the Olds approach is vindicated, in a way.
Strangely, the Diesel/Regular price spread, where I live (AZ), is all over the place; it’s even cheaper at some truck stops.
I think the success of the Prius et al. made hybrids a safe buy in the eyes of most customers, though remember, its economy advantage diminishes with highway driving. But then, how many people commute at max highway speeds?
Diesel has been cheaper than Regular in my part of Canada for a while now.
Here in Calgary, Alberta, diesel is cheaper than regular gas about 7 months of the year. As winter approaches, the price starts creeping up. For a short time in winter, price has slightly exceeded premium gas a few years. Averaged over a whole year, diesel will be slightly less than regular gas. This has been the pattern since I’ve been observing it the last 6 years. Believe this correlates with bunkering and usage of home heating oil in fall and winter.
Absolutely, the towing crowd buys a lot of diesel trucks. The Dodge / Cummins was legendary for a while. The Ford Excursion SUV also seemed to have a heavy diesel take rate. I think it is easier for the hard core trailer crowd to pencil out the diesel cost penalty, and they may get longer engine life as well.
But, as a passenger car engine, it seemed like only VW (VAG) made any modern in-roads in the U.S., and we know how that turned out.
While I’m generally favorable to diesels, we got a Prius for my wife because no brand I trust offers any here.
Ford & GM have a full range of FWD diesel cars in Europe, so technology isn’t the problem.
The diesels have a lot more torque too, which is arguably more important when loaded. I imagine that plenty of diesel buyers don’t run the cost numbers and just accept the cost as “worth it”.
That has certainly been the case here with diesel cars and SUVs.
A turbo diesel has more torque, but a turbo gas engine also has more torque. However, towing with a turbo gas engine may be harder on the engine.
Why so disparaging of VW diesels? Have you ever owned or driven one? I have had two – a 1981 Rabbit D and still own a 1997 Passat TDi.
The VW diesel emissions issue isn’t with the engine at all – they simply cheaped-out and tried to get away with not using SCR to lower the NOx.
Go drive one, if you haven’t. You might be surprised.
I’ve never driven a VW diesel.
I’m actually very aware that the diesel fantasy that VW was selling could be very satisfying from the driver’s seat. Good response, good road manners, excellent fuel economy.
What’s not to love?
*A dealer network not known for good treatment of customers.
*So-so reliability.
*Somewhat expensive repairs.
*A documented fraud regarding the car’s environmental bonafides.
VW was drawing me in with its Tennessee Passat, and the current generation Bug. But, the bad press has turned me away. And, I’m afraid that that I’m not the only one. How many Americans are clamoring for VWs or diesel at this point?
VW did a good job of disparaging itself, decidedly without any help from me.
Look up the issues with the pd diesels…. 04 to 06 I believe… I had an 05. They decided to add the injection pump lobes to the camshafts without making any changes to the metallurgy, but they shrank the lobe widths to fit the extra lobes on the camshaft…. The result was a guaranteed flat camshaft that was causing misfires by 140k miles that could go out as soon as 100k… Absolutely 80s GM level deadly sin. I will never own another VW after that car. Period.
Yesterday in Vehicle Dynamics lesson a professor was asking why diesel isn’t popular as an engine choice for the US? He is from Ford though.
Anyone with industrial experience ought to know, or at least know whom to ask.
BTW it sounds like an interesting class you have.
Ford made millions of diesel owered cars in Europe they partnered Peugeot in the early 00s to get their HDI technology and have used those engines for years, argueably the best passenger car diesels ever certainly better than VW.
I will never forget the first time I saw/heard a GM car with a diesel engine. It was 1978 and I was walking home from the local convenience store. There was a rotary/roundabout near my Mom’s house and the car was traveling around it. I stopped and stared in disbelief – is that car blowing up? What the heck is wrong with it? Why is so much smoke coming out of the tailpipe? It was a Delta 88 Royale Sedan, in the ever-so-popular Camel Tan with a light beige vinyl top and interior. That image and sound will forever be planted in my brain!
My Aunt Lila had a 1980 Eldorado diesel that I drove on several occasions. It was so strange driving such a nice car – pillowy interior, loaded with options and then start her up and what? GRAR GRAR GRAR GRAR GRAR GRAR – and tons of black smoke, and that smell! My Dad always wondered why they bought such a nice car and ruined it with that engine. My Mom’s ’79 Riviera in comparison with the 350 V-8 was so much nicer to drive in comparison. That diesel engine was replaced several times until they finally sold that car – and never went back to Cadillac again.
I also had another Aunt and Uncle with two diesels in their family – a 1980 Electra Estate wagon and a 1980 Cadillac Seville. They NEVER complained of issues with those cars – they loved them as a matter of fact! Whether or not they were troublesome they kept to themselves. But they had two of them!
Can someone explain the tax article to an ignorant foreigner? What is “personal property tax” and how was it being applied? I assumed “property tax” applied to one’s home. (we don’t have property tax here)
So were they paying property tax on a car they had owned for years? Surely not? It’s communism I tells ya! I must be missing something.
In many US states, we pay an annual tax when we renew our license plate/registration. Indiana calls it an excise tax, but I suspect that the personal property tax is the same thing. Ours is based on some formula that relates to the value of the car, so that an economy car’s plates will be cheaper than a luxury car’s plates. As the car ages, the tax reduces and bottoms out when the car is 10 or 12 years old. And plates for an old Cadillac will always cost more than plates for an old Plymouth or Honda.
Ah, OK. Thanks – so it’s like what we call (but isn’t really called) “road tax”.
“Personal property tax” just seemed vague enough of a name not to apply just to cars, it was almost like they were assessing the value of a variety of assets and levying a tax on them.
Virginia’s local governments do collect an annual tax based on a car’s estimated value. This can be quite high — this year for example, we paid $255 in tax for our 6-year-old minivan. For a new minivan, it would be 3-4 times that amount. As you can imagine, most Virginians hate the car tax.
Virginia bases the tax on a car’s Blue Book value, but what’s odd is that options are NOT included in the government’s estimate. So, a stripped-down model pays the same tax as a fully-loaded model. The GM diesel situation was odd because the diesel was an option, but by the mid-80s those cars were nearly valueless. Owners got taxed on far more value than their cars were worth — hence the plea for a refund.
And, to muddy this up for you, the personal property tax varies by state. And some states, such as Illinois, don’t have (or didn’t have) one for cars and pickups.
The personal property tax where I live in Missouri even varies somewhat by county. My March 1 of each year I have to submit to the county collector (the money goes to the county here, not the state) what vehicles I own, what boats I own, what trailers I own, plus, since this is an agricultural area, how many head of what livestock I own.
It’s somewhat less for me than what Eric703 mentions. My entire personal property tax for a 2014 Passat, 2007 F-150, 2000 Ford van, and 1963 Ford was around $400. Of course the van and ’63 are depreciated out, but my pickup was valued at about the same amount as the 7 year newer VW.
My license fee is based upon engine displacement; two year registration for the van, with a 5.4 liter engine, was around $72. Conversely, in Illinois where my parents live and there is no personal property tax, license fees are the same across the board, regardless of what you drive. Last I had a car licensed in Illinois in the mid-90s, license fees were $75 / year. License fees – as well as sales tax on vehicles – goes to fund transportation at the state level.
It’s a head scratcher at times.
Indiana’s vehicle excise tax is irritating (to put it mildly), particularly when I thought one of the tenants of allowing legalized gambling in the state was it would do away with (or at least significantly lower) the tax.
But it does balance out somewhat, overall, in that Indiana has lower (maybe much lower) property tax than states that have a flat rate for vehicle registration. Insurance rates may come into play, as well. I believe that’s how it is in neighboring Michigan.
Government 101: once a tax in in place it will not be voluntarily reduced or eliminated no matter how many new taxes are levied promising to reduce or eliminate the old tax.
Indiana did cut the automobile excise tax in half several years ago and made up the difference in gambling money. I would need to look to verify if they still do it but the Indiana license receipt used to say how much you saved in excise tax since they started using gambling income to make up the difference. It tickles me when my Indiana neighbors complain about being highly taxed when Indiana generally has some of the lowest tax rates in the country. The downside of these low taxes is crappy schools, crappy roads, poorly paid government employees and a level of government services that would be laughed at in some of the more progressive states.
Thankfully we don’t have that BS tax here in Ohio.
Personal property is stuff you can transport elsewhere easily. Houses don’t move easily. Cars can, as well as say diamonds…..
That’s a rare car, no question. The Olds diesel has been covered here and it’s shortcomings are well known, but by the time this example the situation had improved with larger diameter head bolts, an improved head gasket, and the substantially strengthened DX block. The 4.3L V-6 diesel was a much better engine, it had the V-8 improvements from the start of production. Oldsmobile engineers had been ‘playing around’ with diesel conversions of their V-8’s beginning around 1974, no doubt inspired by Mercedes-Benz. The problems started when their efforts caught the attention of GM’s corporate management, who pushed hard to get the engine in production as quickly as possible. The irony in it all was the fact that the Oldsmobile people admittedly had little diesel experience, while at the time GM owned Detroit Diesel, one of the nation’s largest automotive diesel engine manufacturers. The story was late in the 350 diesel’s development Detroit Diesel was consulted to review the engine, and word was their engineers were somewhat ‘skeptical’.
Bad though they were when introduced, at least the Olds 350 diesel was eventually developed into a reasonably reliable engine. Unfortunately by the time they were sorted out the car buying public was (rightfully) scared to death of them. I would even go so far as to say that with the passage of time the Olds 350 diesel has lost it’s crown as the worst diesel car/light truck engine. I think that dubious honor now belongs to the thoroughly awful Ford/International 6.0L Powerstroke.
Oldsmobile engineers had been ‘playing around’ with diesel conversions of their V-8’s beginning around 1974, no doubt inspired by Mercedes-Benz.
M-B never “converted” gas engines to diesels. Their diesels were designed from scratch as such.
Agreed, I think Olds was inspired by Mercedes (possibly by Peugeot as well) simply to offer diesel powered passenger cars, not to create diesels from gasoline engines. I should have been more clear about that.
A friend of mine bought a new ’79 Cadillac Seville diesel back then, he did a lot of commuting throughout the Southern California region. Just as you describe, within a few short months, the head gasket blew, plus myriad other major problems and failures that continued unabated for the relatively short time he had the car. It was back at the dealer for repairs more often than he was able to drive it, and he was often left stranded in various scenarios. I remember him railing against this car until at some point, frustrated into near oblivion, he struck an agreement with the dealer to take the thing back. I believe he moved on to a new Mercedes after that, never to get near a GM product again.
I had a co-worker whose husband bought a new 1978 Olds 98 diesel for her to use for a short commute. My recollection is that it was a dark blue two-door sedan with a black vinyl top, very handsome car with a posh interior. They were meticulous in maintaining everything they owned, including their cars. Clearly the dealerships here in SoCal must not have had the expertise to deal with these cars because the 98 began giving trouble the first week she drove it to work and from then on it was in and out of the dealership with no resolution of the problems. The car became a running joke in the office (she usually began the jokes). They persistently tried to make the car work for them – after all it was only to be driven about 10 miles a day and for some little trips on the week-ends – and kept it for a few years until the engine did a complete meltdown at very low mileage. GM offered to switch out the engine for a non-diesel but they refused, and the dealer bought it back. They promptly bought a new Cressida and were never to buy another American car.
Very nicely timed article, considering how WVoA’s huge EPA-cheating diesel scandal threatens, once again, to badly tarnish the diesel engine’s reputation, at least as it applies to passenger transportation vehicles, similar to GM’s foray into that market back in the late seventies. It’s really ironic since it’s not a mechanical malady that’s now causing all the furor, but VW engineering that was intentionally done to get around emissions certification. And doubly ironic since GM’s biggest issue was how their diesel problem mainly just cost the company in reputation (although there was certainly lots of warranty repair). VW’s cost sounds like it’s going to be exponentially higher, not only in reputation, but in real monetary loss since they violated federal law.
For those whose vehicle choice is primarily done for fuel mileage and were conflicted about whether to go diesel or hybrid, and then chose the latter, I would imagine they’re feeling quite smug right about now (particularly those who went with a Prius, traditionally the leading ‘smug-mobile’). OTOH, with gas prices at historically low levels (and forecast to stay that way for a while), maybe not quite as smug as in years past.
I’ve personally never quite understood the appeal of a diesel engine in a passenger vehicle, at least not in today’s world where the price of diesel fuel at the pump is at (and sometimes above) the price of gasoline and hybrids are widely available that get equivalent fuel mileage. There’s another big difference between GM’s seventies’ diesel debacle and VW today: there were no high fuel mileage hybrids back then.
Rudiger, I couldn’t agree with you more. If diesel fuel were a lot cheaper then I could see the popularity of diesel engines. But with the new technology making naturally aspirated engines and hybrids so fuel efficient and the price of regular gas so inexpensive, diesels make absolutely no sense at all.
On top of all the other detriments, diesels are more maintenance-intensive than hybrids, both in frequency and cost. One of the things that VW was trying to avoid was the refilling of the urea fluid that competitors found necessary to meet new, tougher emission requirements. That was a big selling point they were touting with their so-called ‘clean diesel’. The claim was it could out-perform everyone else in both performance and emissions without resorting to the urea additive.
Diesels do have benefits that outweigh their detriments in other applications (mainly higher torque for towing). I just don’t see it in non-towing passenger vehicles.
The extra torque is a factor in passenger vehicles too, which in Europe typically have what most people who aren’t acclimatized to them would consider undersized engines
Most Euro-executive cars have a diesel engine. That is, folks who drive 30,000 to 50,000 km a year. Or more.
A Benz E-Class with a 4-cylinder diesel will very easily get 35 mpg on average.
VW’s turbo 2 liter diesel’s torque is rated at about 240 ft-lbs. GM’s 2 liter turbo diesel is rated at 260 ft-lbs. GM’s 2 liter turbo 4 gas engine is rated at 295 ft-lbs……..
A friend of mine had an ’83 Caddy DeVille diesel which had IIRC over 250k miles on it when he sold it about 10 years ago. Wonder what GM did differently by then?
I recently drove a Seville diesel once, along with a diesel Coupe De Ville. My concern was a simple lack of power. They barely kept up with normal modern traffic. There was no power reserve for anything, including merging, hills, etc. Driving them was somehat unnerving since manoevers had to be planned ahead of time. At times one was at the mercy of the caution and courtesy of others, a rare commodity in my city.
I’ve driven plenty of 85hp economy cars, but a heavy diesel DeVille is a new world of road hazard slowness. I feel this was not luxury at all. Luxury implies an absence of stress and worry, something a diesel Caddy provided in spades.
So true OntarioMIke! Like I said in a previous post, my Aunt had a 1980 Eldorado diesel at the same time my Mom had a 1979 Riviera with the 350 V-8. Having driven both, the Riviera was such a nicer car to drive than the Eldorado. The 350 V-8 in the Riv provided plenty of power and torque. The diesel was a sled in comparison. Also it was very noisy and extremely slow. It made the Eldorado feel like it wasn’t a luxury car at all. I remember one time my Aunt drove my mother’s car and commented – why did we ever buy a diesel?
I keep on hearing about modern traffic speeds, I can tell you in the 60’s and the first half of the 70’s that traffic was a lot faster than today. I made it from Seaside, Oregon to Portland Oregon in 55 min. Regularly made the trip from Portland to Lincoln city in 70-75 mins and Portland to Salem in under 30 mins, sometimes in 25 mins. When I went to Reno in ’72 I was cruising anywhere from 70-90 mph, a lot over 2 lane roads. And a trip to work in ’74 took me 7 mins, the best you could do today is at least 15 mins and most likely more today. All while driving 60’s cars that were all 4dr sedans and not hot rods or muscle cars which by the way would probably be actually slower on the same trips. What everyone is comparing speeds to are the 80’s & 90’s with their gutless wonders as opposed to earlier traffic speeds in the 60’s and the first half of the 70’s with cars that could outrun them easily. Also drove regularly from 82nd and Halsey to Faraday Lake beyond Estacada in less than 35 min with no 205 freeway a trip today that takes well over an hour with a freeway.
Ever see Used Cars? There’s a scene where a group of beat up cars headed for the dealership are running behind schedule at 55mph so Kurt Russel gets on the bullhorn in the lead truck and announces they’ll “get a history lesson on how we used to drive …. Seventy Five!!”
Oregon’s population in 1975= 2.3 million
Oregon’s population in 2015= 4.1 million
The vast majority of this growth has been in the Willamette Valley I-5 corridor.
And no new roads since then. That’s the problem.
In fact, Metro once said that their traffic management plan was to just let the traffic get so bad that people would convert to mass transit from sheer frustration.
Bastards.
Those were pretty sorted out for the 81 and up years. Bigger head bolts, roller lifter cam,strengthened block. I worked on a lot of those in the mid 80’s, mainly r and I injection pumps. The plastic governor weight coupling ring would fall apart at 1000,000. I did see one that was converted back to gas by using a gas cam, heads, intake and distributor. Diesel pistons, rods, crank, and block. It was no slouch and the best part that registered as a diesel, it was exempt from the usual smog check. A friend of mine has a Checker powered by one. It was a factory job and used as a test mule. Not a bad driver, but probably not up to taxi duty.
By the way, VW and Navistar have joined forces. Imagine two companies who could not meet diesel emissions joining together. UGH.
I think your pictures are very good for being alerted to the find mid-pass! Nice shots!
Also love the ad for the wagon version with the Robert Redford fraternal twin father silently rejoicing in the distance between himself and his boisterous children in the way back 🙂 Of course, today I guess they’d be staring into their iPhones like zombies back there. Maybe not if they were in this car, though, since it’s got nice big windows.
The diesels got what was very impressive mileage in those days, really a shame the engine was so hit or miss early on. Best mileage I ever saw in a conventional B/C body was in my ’93 Fleetwood Brougham. Despite having nearly 200K on the clock, its 23 gallon fuel tank filled with regular got me into the 550 mile range two times before I filled up.
Robert Redford? More like Jon Bon Jovi if he had been born in 1945. And sitting in a rear-facing seat, no matter what year or how big the windows are, would just make me ill.
I can see that. Although I said “fraternal twin”. Maybe “somewhat less handsome brother”. I also dig the corduroy cardigan.
I thought at least some of the 80s wagons had forward facing rear seats…not side-jumps or rear-facing. Maybe it was just the old clamshells.
Nice find………..definitely a unicorn.
First off, those pictures are absolutely AWESOME, being taken on the road, off the fly like that. You’re the Robert Capa of CCs in motion. Seriously.
On the whole GM Diesel thing, though, I do have one question. Why did they put those engines in the entire car line, from Chevy to Caddy?
Seems the wise thing to do would have been to limit the risk to a couple of marques, say Olds and Pontiac, for a couple years at least — sort of like what they did with FWD in the ’60s. Was it a CAFE thing, or did GM just figure they had a real winner there?
CAFE was one factor and the other was the second oil crisis, which followed the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The U.S. economy was in a dreadful state — “stagflation” was the contemporary term, which meant what you’d expect — and consumer interest rates went through the roof. It made people very jumpy about fuel economy and fuel prices.
So, I think the divisions wanted the diesel, just as they wanted the Buick V-6. (This was before the Roger Smith reorganization, so the divisions still had independent management, although it was eroding with the demand for shared corporate engines.) In Cadillac’s case, I think they were especially nervous about CAFE and they were looking at Mercedes-Benz, which in that period was selling an awful lot of diesels in the U.S. I have a hard time envisioning a 240D or 300D buyer meaningfully considering a bustle-back Seville, but that’s another matter.
Hmm.. CAFE must have been the dominant factor then. I didn’t mention the ’79 oil shock myself because the timeline doesn’t add up: at the latest, the GM divisions would have had to decide on using the engine in early spring 1977. The second oil shock and its aftermath is what made people buy Diesels in 1981, not what made GM put it in every car line for the fall of 1977.
Oil prices were steadily increasing after the 1973 embargo. Before the embargo, oil prices were flat from post world war 2.
I think this engine was mostly experimental to begin with, but was marginally production ready for the 78 model year. My 78 Olds diesel was still running on the first engine with no major problems @75,000 miles when I traded it for a gas power Buick Skyhawk.
American retail gasoline today is cheaper, relative to car price, than it was in 1970, so no wonder monster trucks & SUVs are so popular, and people can afford to park & waste gas idling while they play with smart phones. OTOH, this finally made the Prius a rational buy for us as Toyota discounted it heavily.
All this is no joy if you’re an oil industry worker.
This is a very interesting conversation. As far as I know, CAFE and the ’79 oil shock sort of intersected.
In other words, GM was going to kill the 425, 403, 350 (gas, most applications) and start installing wonky transmissions in ’80 and ’81 regardless. (Former Olds 307 AOD owner speaking from experience.)
The oil shock bordered on serendipity in the sense that the consumer was literally beaten into a desire for good fuel economy at the price of performance, interior room and higher automobile purchase and maintenance costs. The bad thing for the auto companies was the resulting economic downturn made it all but impossible to sell a sustaining volume of vehicles of any sort.
Serendipity is exactly the word.
If you look at this chart (gas prices in constant $, 1919-2011), The real shock was 1979.
I’m not sure that better fuel economy necessarily translates into lower performance & interior space and higher costs, though. What about the Big Three’s ruthless cost-cutting from ’65 onward, the panic-engineering (Olds Diesel, V8-6-4, etc.) of the mid ’70s and the EPA’s smog regulations?
As you note, fuel economy and performance are not always inverse – the ’77 GM big cars brought improvements in both. Modern V-6 engines are quite amazing.
But, the ’80-’85 era, probably peak Malaise years in the U.S., proven technology had reached its limit in economy and performance linked with a spacious automobile. There was nowhere to go but down in vehicle size and engine size.
I literally watched people trade in 350 / 403 gas V-8 powered ’77 Buicks on ’81 four cylinder Buick Skylarks, because they felt they had to, and GM’s CAFE statistics probably shot through the roof. It was a period of reduced expectations.
Of course, when the economy improved, and gas prices went down, a lot of those Skylarks were traded in on 302 powered Ford Panthers. Not exactly a GM 350 gas V-8, but a lot nicer than an ’81 Skylark.
Prices in constant dollars is not what people were paying though. Crude oil prices increased from under $4 to about $10 during the embargo, then increased to about $15 by late 1978. Then spike to nearly $40 in 1979-80. The 70’s were bad for inflation.
It wasn’t available in every car line at first. For 1978, it was available in Oldsmobiles (naturally enough) and in the Cadillac Seville, the latter being aimed at Cadillac. It was also available in some of the truck lines.
It was added as an option for other Cadillacs in MY1979, probably for CAFE reasons, but broader availability didn’t come until MY1980–81. Some of that was CAFE (it was initially available principally for wagons), but I think it was also a response to the fuel crisis.
Makes perfect sense, and answers my original query. Thank you, sir!
Lots of interesting commentary here, but am I the only one who felt a little confused at Eric703’s wife’s description of this as an “old car”? I mean, that’s one of the new downsized B bodies. I guess I’m getting old …
Having met Mrs.Eric703, she’s much more of a car girl than many of us can credit our wives for being. I suspect she knew it was older and possible noteworthy (it’s over 30, after all) and that was her way of waking Eric up. 🙂
Right on all accounts!
And even though the Caprice is considerably younger than me, it still qualifies as an old car in my book since it’s older than 99% of other cars on the road.
It’s 35. It’s definitely an old car. You don’t see a lot of 35-year-old vehicles on the road in 2016. It just doesn’t ~seem~ like it’s that old; it still has a youthful ‘look’ to it.
I have this problem with recognizing that time has indeed marched on.
My yellow gold ’87 Caprice Wagon gets comments all the time. It is nice, but it does puzzle me a bit, I have yet to really realize that the ’80s are “old” as far as cars are concerned. For reference, I am 36. Probably because all I have owned with the exception of one are pre 1988 models, and that is in the neighborhood of 20 vehicles.
The Olds diesel was highly praised by European publications like the German Auto, Motor und Sport. The combination of a large, comfortable American car with diesel economy and reasonable performance was unprecedented, and they sold quite well there, aided by the low dollar exchange rate. I’m sure the European buyers weren’t much happier than the American ones with the longer term outcomes.
It is quite amazing to hear of an American product of this era being celebrated outside the United States – especially something as quintessentially American as an Oldsmobile Delta 88. Such a shame that the handful of American successes at the time frequently blew up.
Last one of these I saw had a built up stroker 350 (383) installed instead of the original diesel. The owner finally had enough and a junk Chevy truck donated the engine and transmission for it. 400 hp was a vast improvement over the stock 105, for sure.
Although I disliked the diesel engine, our 1979 Cadillac Eldorado Diesel, a family hand-me-down, didn’t have major engine problems. Its head gaskets held up. It never had fuel injector issues. A lot of that I attribute to a Racor water separator that was installed when the car was virtually brand new. And yet every few thousand miles, the engine would run rough. A new fuel filter (about $50) cured it every time.
But we didn’t drive the car on long trips. That duty fell to our Chrysler F-body 1976 Dodge Aspen, which was much quicker (the Eldo Diesel was bog-slow) and handled better. It was simply a more pleasant car for the highway and for mountainous or curvy country roads.
The Dodge aged better, too. The Eldo’s extra-cost Firemist paint peeled and flaked. The vinyl roof shrank…I concealed the gap under the roof moulding with aluminum flashing from the hone improvement store. The headliner fell down…I resecured it with staples. Fortunately the diesel, though by my estimation getting very close to yet another fuel filter interval, was running well when I took it to trade toward a used Ford Taurus wagon. I did mention that the diesel would run rough every few thou, and the salesman thought nothing of it, replying, “Needed a fuel filter, didn’t it?”
I always bought diesel fuel at truck stops, thinking that they knew more about handling diesel and keeping it water free than the gas stations.
My farming BIL used to give me the same advice. The other benefit is that they sell enough fuel to keep it fresh in the tank. He told me that winter blends keep diesel from gelling in cold temps, but at some low volume station in the suburbs, they might still be selling a warm weather blend after the weather had turned cold.
The truck stops had both #1 and #2. I tried an additive that was supposed to prevent wax crystals from developing, but in zero F weather it did not work.
I never really understood why GM would design such an obviously compromised product from the very start. It must have been an expensive undertaking to design a whole new engine concept when there were still plenty of improvements to be made to existing GM engines.
How about a real fuel injection system? Ditch the flat tappets for roller lifters. That kind of thing.
Instead of the diesel rabbit hole, GM could have had an engine like the Buick 3300/3800 V-6 a lot earlier, and it would have worked better than the diesel. Both motors were the limit of their time, but cheap and robust.
The Olds 350 diesel was not the first time GM took a gasoline engine and made a diesel out of it. That ‘honor’ belongs to the GMC Toro-Flow, essentially a diesel version of GMC’s gasoline fueled V-6 truck engine of 1960 for use in medium duty trucks. The Toro-Flow had a history much the same as the Olds diesel in that it was quite problematical for a few years after introduction, but was eventually improved into an acceptable powerplant. A case could be made however that GMC had intended to build diesel versions of their gasoline V-6 from the start, judging by how overbuilt they were.
I did a little research on the Toro-Flow gas-to-diesel truck engine conversion, and it’s quite fascinating. A CC on one would be interesting mainly in how it foreshadowed the problems GM would again have with converting the Olds 350 to diesel. The problems weren’t identical between the two efforts, but there were enough of them that GM should have been keenly aware of how carefully they would need to orchestrate the engineering to make the Olds 350 diesel an acceptable passenger car engine. Clearly, they didn’t learn (or care) from the earlier effort.
The biggest issue would be that, just like finding a running Olds diesel unicorn, finding an old, running Toro-Flow diesel is just as difficult. As stated, I guess the second-generation (known as Toro-Flow II) was better, but the only way to longevity was to exceed factory routine maintenance. Perhaps that’s the case with the feature Caprice, as well.
One key to longevity was not pushing the engine too hard.
The 350 Olds diesel was designed to use the same tooling as the gas 350. This is why the number of head bolts were less than what a diesel should have had. The block was heavy enough for the diesel, as well as the heads. The engine was a diesel design, just designed to work with existing tooling, which reduced the number of head bolts. Also no concern about handling water in the fuel tank, which lead to fuel injection pump failures (and probably made the head bolt problem worse).
My family bought a new ’81 Olds 98 Regency diesel when we lived in Memphis, for planned road trips across the South to visit extended family. A year later, we moved to Maine, which introduced us to the world of engine block heaters and bad gas. No blown head gaskets, but at least one replacement engine that I can think of due to water in the gas. And I distinctly remember having to leave high school basketball games at halftime during the winter to run the car so the gas didn’t turn to Jell-O. Thankfully, I was just a spectator.
Running the engine would not keep the fuel in the tank warm, where it would still gel. What you need in cold weather is either #1 or some sort of winter diesel fuel.
Familiar road, familiar terrain. I was usually trapped in a traffic jam on 270 or screaming along 70 west back home, but I do know about US 33.
For me the diesel attraction is the highway range. 800+ miles on a single tank is very attractive for those of us doing city to city interstate driving.
In most cars at 400 miles you are actively looking for a station, ANY station to fill up. Late night that can be a problem depending on where you are. With a large range you can keep going for as long as you need to until a more “suitable” stop can be found.
And it does come up, especially in the southwest.
(Don’t get me started on a Sunday evening in “Truth or Consequences” New Mexico!)
On a trip to Houston in the early 80’s, I noted an add in the Houston Chronicle. For a flat fee, a garage will pull your GM diesel and substitute an Olds 350 V8 gasoline engine. Add mentioned that the conversion included supplemental items (brake system, electrical, etc) were included in the costs. Don’t remember the price, but it seemed reasonable at the time.
Did you get to see if the front seat was split or bench? I believe that is even more rare. And who would be interested in purchasing one ? I have an excellent example ,1982 one owner car with the whole package . Also does any one know exactly how many of this combination was produced? It would be great to find an appreciated home for this one. Thanks everyone
It’s been several years since this article first ran, and this car has definitely now crossed the threshold from merely being odd and old into downright unicorn territory. I wonder if it’s still out there somewhere.
I have an ’81 Westy, which has the strange combo of a fuel injected, air-cooled engine. Vanagons only featured this engine from ’79-81. While there are some similarities to the late Bay Bus, it’s an esoteric engine, and it’s getting hard to find anyone who knows how to work on it. The odder the engine and the less desirable the car or the era it belongs to, the more difficult it gets to find one, and to keep it running if one does find one.
I’ve wrote in several times to defend the Olds diesel, I have several that are dependable daily drivers. I’d point out that when we all see any kind of news, it’s always the bad news that gets coverage, not the good news. I think the bad news of the Olds diesel got all the coverage. Along with the above comments, by 81 the engine was bulletproof, just don’t let water get in. There is a warning light feature to prevent this. I’d like to contrast how Olds revised their engine within a couple of years, yet Buick engines had a terrible oiling system from 1961 unitl the mid 80’s, so for over 20 years Buick chose not to address their defective engines. Even Cadillac used the lousy oil pump in the timing cover design, their engines did somewhat better.
Saw a Caddy back in the day in a parking lot. The owner must have bought the local Oldsmobile dealer’s entire stock of “Diesel” badges.
He had one on each of the 4 doors, one on each front and rear fender, one on the grille, two on the trunk, and one on each of the C pillars. I was afraid to look in the interior.
Let’s see…that’s…umm…er…13.
I guess he wanted people to know he had a Caddy.