2017 Diesel Thoughts?

http://www.torquenews.com/1083/diesel-or-2016-toyota-tacoma-which-would-you-pick


This article got me thinking. Although Toyota said it wasn't cost effective for them to build a diesel Tacoma in the US, I bet if the Colorado diesel sells well then Toyota will follow.

Just my opinion...
Any thoughts on this?

 

Toyota was adamant they were not going to do it until there was cheaper technology to meet the emissions standards...

 

The head engineer on the Tacoma was emphatic and gave detailed reasons why Toyota will not sell a Diesel Tacoma. He said the urea injection system will cost $3000 per vehicle, PLUS the cost of the added cost of the Diesel engine. Furthermore, with the slump of oil prices, and the price differential between gas and Diesel fuel in the US, plus add in the yet unknown cost of GM's Thailand built Duramax engine, it's a gamble for GM at this point.

As an aside, a close friend is a Diesel mechanic with 30 years experience. He calls Duramax engines "junk", he works on them but wouldn't buy one. He says Cummins is the engine he'd buy. Nissan will offer a Cummins Diesel in the new Titan and a baby Cummins was teased in the Frontier, it'll be interesting to see if / when Nissan ever gets around to re-designing the Frontier if they'll offer a Diesel.

 

Yeah I kind of forget about gas prices. In SoCal gas is almost 4/gal.
I guess we will have to see how it goes for Chevy.

 

As everyone mentioned above I don't see it happening. If by some miracle Toyota offered a diesel Tacoma DC 4x4 with a manual I'd trade my beloved 2nd Gen Tacoma in before my 10 year time horizon, but only then.

 

A diesel option would add about $4-5000 dollars to the sticker price. $3000 for the aftertreatment up to $2000 for the rest. How many people here would be willing to pay that price for a diesel?

 

Exactly....and for what advantage. A diesel in the U.S. in a small truck has little of no advantage. The truck is too small to tow much more and the economy advantage is mitigated by the higher price. Longevity is imaterial as the gas engine outlasts the truck's body regardless. America is awash in gasoline.

 

I think a lot of people would pay it. People pay 600 bucks for 200 dollar nerf bars that bolt onto the cab. What do people pay for the Limited package over an SR5?

 

With the members on this forum, a lot, myself included. You're talking about a large subset of owners/enthusiast who pay on average $700 for upgraded UCA just to get an extra 1" of drop. Anywhere from $1200 - $3500 (OME to Icon Stage 4) on suspension lifts which also add how many dollars in additional fuel cost over the life of owner ship just so they can add bigger tires (rotational mass) just to increase their ground clearance by 1" to 1.5"? That and 33"+ tires look bad ass.

Most of the initial $3,500-$4,500 in additional sticker price will be offset with higher residual value when you sell/trade it. For the remaining $2000+ of additional maintenance I'd gladly pay if it means I go from 16.5/17.0 mpg to 24/25 (increasing my tank range from 320-330 to 480-500 miles). Plus all that low rpm/nearly instantaneous torque for off-roading, yes please.

Remember there were a lot of nay sayers with the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ram 1500 diesels before they came out. Now nearly 20% of the Ram 1500 and close to 15% of the JGC are diesels. I'm expecting the GM twins to sell roughly 10% of their volumes in diesels as well.

 

Well, you can't argue with vanity. You are right, guys spend so much after maket on lifts they don't use and glitz, a diesel would fit in line in that respect. I suspect though, it would not be a Toyota development project but a Cummins or the like they could just buy and not use their precious developement funds for. If that happens, Cummins would start blabbing it out and we have heard nothing save the Tundra.

 

The people that frequent this forum (me included) are not representative of the average Tacoma buying public, so even if every single person on here were demanding diesel (& they're not) it still wouldn't happen. Toyota is not dumb when it comes to business decisions, they know it's not business-wise to make a Tacoma diesel in the U.S. & they've laid out in plain English why. A percentage of people here won't digest it though.

I've owned diesel trucks continuously for about 15 hrs now, I don't hate them by any means & they have places where they make sense both operationally & financially (heavy duty towing, in physical locations where diesel is more prevelent than gasoline, etc).

A diesel in a U.S. based Tacoma would only get you a small increase in towing capability (due to Tacoma's physical size & construction), & only a small/med MPG advantage. The price for those benefits is a significant up-charge in initial purchase price, & a moderate increase in maintenance costs throughout the life of the truck. For 90+ percent of the would-be Tacoma diesel buyers the math wouldn't add up in a cost-benefit calculation if they'd bother to do one. So what you're left with is the 'I just want one' factor, which is cool, but Toyota isn't going to act on the small # of folks with that preference.

Interesting fact I just looked up on KBB.com. My diesel truck is currently worth $4k more than its equivalent gas-burning brother. I paid $5k more for it up front to get the diesel option. Fact is, the small MPG benefit I gain from my diesel will never 'save me ahead' of the higher initial purchase price, the increased price of diesel, & the much higher routine maintenance costs.

 

Like I said I know they said they wouldn't and it is not that I can't "digest it" I was just looking for opinions lol

 

The question isn't "will someone pay for it". The question is "will enough people pay for it to be worth developing". The answer to the first question is undoubtedly yes, but it is almost a non-sequitur as it is the second question that matters. The answer to the second question is open to debate, but Toyota probably knows their market, development and manufacturing costs and profit margins better than any of us on the forum. And Toyota seems to think the answer is definitively "no".

Any metal fab shop can make nerf bars in an afternoon. And third parties can make all sorts of suspension components in low volumes economically. As to the limited package all that junk is fairly easy to develop, manufacture and bolt on. So for those things the answer to the second question is easily "yes" because really not many people need to pay for it to make it worth the development and manufacturing effort.

A whole new power plant? That is a completely different league. Tacoma's only sell 150k units a year. Toyota only does new engines for them every 10 years. That's because it is incredibly expensive to do. So they would probably need a lot of their market to buy a diesel for a long time for it to be worth it. Given the variability of gas prices, the rapidly changing emissions standards and the ridiculously fickle US auto consumer (gas goes up they send their SUVs to the crusher and buy hybrids, gas goes down for two months they buy their SUVs again) it would seem for Toyota a huge expense that would have to amortized over a decade and low purchase volumes into a market that might decide it hates diesels again in just a few years.

And keep in mind, all these places have limited development, testing and manufacturing resources. So any "will people buy it and should we build it" question does not stand on its own. The real question is "of all the things we could build that people will buy which one will we make the most profit off of if we dedicate our R&D team to it". Clearly Toyota has decided a Diesel Tacoma is not at the top of that list and there are far more profitable things for them to focus their efforts on.

 

If Toyota thought they would make money offering a diesel Tacoma , Toyota would be offering a diesel Tacoma

/thread

 

No shit...
That's why I said if GM did well with it.

 

Hostility

and do you think between now and the fall of next year when the 2017 Tacoma hits the lots that Tacoma will have had time to see whether GM has done well with it , and develop a diesel platform that will bolt into the Tacoma and build the engines ?

 

I've been in the diesel game for a while too. Duramax engines are not "junk". Just because one guy says it, doesn't mean its true. I've had more troubles with Cummins engines actually (Those $4000 injection pump jobs hit the pocket book hard). As a long time member of the dieselplace forum (Duramax based), which has some very knowledgeable people on it, I have ran accross a few threads of people reporting they have recently sold their pre-emission Duramax truck for MORE than they bought it for new from the dealer. Yea, real "junk" there.

 

well im not in the U.S. but do own a 014 tacoma and its real nice. also own 2 hilux 3.0d4d which is an awsome truck too. if toyota usa did a tacoma diesel i woul buy it in a heart beat do to the fact that the diesel has much more popularity hear and gas mileage is unbeatable. my hilux has such good mpg o km/L, but its expensive as SH***t a brand new one 5 speed 4x4 full leather package with a cash payment is 44.000 us dollars and the automatic one is 48.000. my hilux would do 62 miles with 2.3 gallons.

 

Ignoring fuel economy, between the Tacoma and Hilux which one do you like better and why? To me the only realistic way the US market would ever get a mid-size truck from Toyota with a diesel is if they merged the Tacoma and Hilux back together again. It would significantly spread out the R&D cost etc....

 

To start not much people know this but the tacoma and hilux are actually pretty similar in some ways. suspension wise pretty much the same. Engine wise you can get the 4.0 in the hilux. Apart from that the toyota dealer says no to get pass 100 mph because the hilux is much more unstable. its got a bad center of gravity thats the only major problem. To make a pro vs cons of the hilux vs tacoma. Interior wise the tacoma kills the hilux real easy. the design in really simple, in a double cab the tacoma is much bigger for passengers. Built cuality is pretty much the same both are tough. Model wise the tacoma wins, theres pretty much no choice in the hilux only engine and trans, no suspension packages like the trd,tx pro etc. security is also a win in the tacoma. only 2 airbags in the hilux with a non funccional traction control. Over all the tacoma beats the hillux. Once i did drive a 2008 tacoma with the hilux engine and it was just a pleasure that engine in that truck.. dream.