DaimlerChrysler manufactures Jeeps with diesel engines…for the export market, not domestically.
I like the efficiency of diesels, and am thinking of getting one and converting it to run on Waste vegetable oil.
Is there a way to special order a diesel Jeep, or, if not, at least order the engine (assuming the engine will mate to the existing transmission.)?
I’ve emailed the company, but got no useful answer.
Enola, the engines should mate up if the tranny’s in both Jeeps are the same. At one time, you could buy a Jeep in the States with a diesel engine, so you might look for one of those if you can’t find a way to get one in a current model. As for being able to order one, that’s a toughie. There might be some emissions issues that prevent you from importing one in the States. (You might be able to get around this by buying a slightly used engine as those are some times exempt.)
Back in the AMC/Jeep/Renault days, you could get a Cherokee with a Renault supplied 4 cylinder turbodiesel…and I have to date never encountered one.
Besides, you can only get one of those with a stick, and I want an automatic.
Landcruiser is the only one that I know of that hase completely interchangeable parts between models and they have a burn all engine…from any kind of alchol to diesel to gas water! there working on a methane burning engine!
Lots of changes in the way diesels are made will be occurring in the next year. More efficient, quieter fuel injection systems are being produced which will make diesels more practical, and probably more available in the US market. If you’re willing to wait, you’ll probably see a diesel Jeep on the market in the not too distant future.
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It would probably be easier to order the engine somehow than the whole vehicle, but quite impractical. It would almost certainly have a different insturment cluster and most certainly a quite different wiring harness under the hood. We haven’t even touched the fuel supply plumbing and other infrastructure to support the diesel engine. By the time you have done the convert, you would have spent some god awful amount of money on parts and labor… any money that you would save by owning the diesel would almost certainly have been spent on the process. I cant even imagine the costs involved… I would suspect tens of thousands.
“Special Ordering” a vehicle from DC? I doubt it. It is almost certainly not emmissions certified for sale in the US (Why would DC spend millions certifying a vehicle they don’t plan to sell?) so you would not be able to get them to sell you one.
The only possible way, and even then I don’t know if you could, would be to try to import one from one of the countries that sell them… but I think it would still have to meet the US laws so it would have to get certified somehow. If you are very serious about this, there are people that do this for a living, usually expensive sports cars though. If you could somehow track down people that do this they might be able to give you the lowdown.
Better off buying an already available diesel… like the Land Cruiser or a used one.
BTW - I did know a person that had a diesel Cherokee years back (it was a mid 80s vintage). The engine was a nightmare. Horrible reliability and parts (even to get them from Jeep/AMC at the time) were terrible.
I read in AutoWeek a while ago that DaimlerChrysler were “considering” selling a diesel Liberty.If you are thinking about diesels,look for a VW Tdi.There is quite a few of them out there in the used market,Golf,Jetta and Beetle.I have a 96 Passat that gets 47 mpg,There is a lot of web support for VW biodiesel projects also.