Opinion Climate change

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SaintsSeptember said:
Australia has always taxed Diesel at a higher rate , reflecting the additional load that heavy vehicles put on roads, driving up costs for building and repair.
That's why Diesel passenger vehicles never got as popular here as they did in Europe.
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I don't think that's the reason
 
sobrave said:
I don't think that's the reason
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It was the "original" reason the excise was higher. ( the actual price is peaking now due to the war ).
Probably lost in time now.

History of fuel taxation in Australia - Bulk Fuel Australia

Taxation on fuel began in 1901 and has often been connected with funding the Australian road network.
bulkfuel.com.au bulkfuel.com.au
The fuel excise underwent an extensive revision in 1957 when diesel vehicle operators were also asked to contribute to the country’s road network expansion and maintenance. To offset this the first excise exemption was introduced, where only on-road uses of diesel fuel would be subject to the charge.
 

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Looks like a lot of Europeans are hedging their bets and buying plug-in hybrids.
Cars like the Ford Kuga only get around 60km range on pure electric drive, but can still run on petrol if needed.
So people commuting to work can happily charge each night and probably not need to run on petrol, yet if they want to drive a long distance, they don't have the perceived hassle of charging in a commercial charging station.

Kia Sportage 70Km.
Skoda Octavia 55km

They are probably still a far better option than other ( Toyota type ) hybrids that always need "some" petrol .
A lot of people wouldn't typically travel more than 60km per day.

Of course, unless you live in France, you're still using fossil fuel to charge them.
 
SaintsSeptember said:
It was the "original" reason the excise was higher. ( the actual price is peaking now due to the war ).
Probably lost in time now.

History of fuel taxation in Australia - Bulk Fuel Australia

Taxation on fuel began in 1901 and has often been connected with funding the Australian road network.
bulkfuel.com.au bulkfuel.com.au
The fuel excise underwent an extensive revision in 1957 when diesel vehicle operators were also asked to contribute to the country’s road network expansion and maintenance. To offset this the first excise exemption was introduced, where only on-road uses of diesel fuel would be subject to the charge.
Click to expand...

Diesel passenger vehicles never really took off in a big way in Europe until more recently, when more fuel efficient small diesels became the norm.

We didn't take it up to the same extent because of the Aussie tough V8 culture, perceived performance benefits of petrol engines etc. Also smaller market, so we didn't get a lot of the small diesel offerings, and less choice made it less attractive to consumers as well.
 
sobrave said:
Diesel passenger vehicles never really took off in a big way in Europe until more recently, when more fuel efficient small diesels became the norm.

We didn't take it up to the same extent because of the Aussie tough V8 culture, perceived performance benefits of petrol engines etc. Also smaller market, so we didn't get a lot of the small diesel offerings, and less choice made it less attractive to consumers as well.
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The Aussie tough V8 culture is a bit of a myth.

The big V6 however is closer to the truth.

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sobrave said:
Diesel passenger vehicles never really took off in a big way in Europe until more recently, when more fuel efficient small diesels became the norm.

We didn't take it up to the same extent because of the Aussie tough V8 culture, perceived performance benefits of petrol engines etc. Also smaller market, so we didn't get a lot of the small diesel offerings, and less choice made it less attractive to consumers as well.
Click to expand...

A good Diesel is hard to design. ( A lot of the good ones came out of Ricardo ).
We had the Toyota ones, and they weren't that good. Precombustion chambers cracking, timing belts lunching them, and rattling and no power.

In Europe the VW Golf , and Peugeot 505 were both very popular ( 1970s ) and it grew from there.
The Diesel used in the Ford Territory was a Land Rover Diesel. If you didn't know it, you didn't recognize it to be a diesel. It was free revving and quiet.
But it cost more to buy and maintain, and with our Diesel prices it wasn't the no-brainer it would have been in Europe.

My friend's father bought a Mercedes 190 Diesel, which cost him a fortune to maintain ( thanks largely to Mercedes Australia's rip off Australians policy, everywhere else in the world they are cheap to maintain ). He was happier with his Nissan Patrol, but it wasn't a comfortable vehicle for the driving he was doing.
 
SaintsSeptember said:
A good Diesel is hard to design. ( A lot of the good ones came out of Ricardo ).
We had the Toyota ones, and they weren't that good. Precombustion chambers cracking, timing belts lunching them, and rattling and no power.

In Europe the VW Golf , and Peugeot 505 were both very popular ( 1970s ) and it grew from there.
The Diesel used in the Ford Territory was a Land Rover Diesel. If you didn't know it, you didn't recognize it to be a diesel. It was free revving and quiet.
But it cost more to buy and maintain, and with our Diesel prices it wasn't the no-brainer it would have been in Europe.

My friend's father bought a Mercedes 190 Diesel, which cost him a fortune to maintain ( thanks largely to Mercedes Australia's rip off Australians policy, everywhere else in the world they are cheap to maintain ). He was happier with his Nissan Patrol, but it wasn't a comfortable vehicle for the driving he was doing.
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All true, but yeah your original claim about the reason diesel vehicles weren't popular here being due to the diesel excise is still not correct.

Perception/culture is a hard thing to shift and diesel was thought of for being for clattery old farm trucks. Doesn't matter that refined diesel engines have existed for a while, it wasn't what people believed.

By the time modern, efficient diesels became a thing, it still didn't take off in a massive way here because driving a tiny 1.3L diesel around the city was a thing for soft**** latte drinkers. And also because they were seen as slow compared to a petrol engine. Whether it was true or not.

Ironically now diesels are highly desirable because they're seen as reliable and every w***er wants their dual cab fourby.

The small passenger vehicle diesel came and went now in Australia, as anyone seeking efficiency now is gonna get an EV or at least a hybrid.
 
sobrave said:
Did old mate just like your post cos it was disagreeing with me?
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I dunno I've been busy fighting with other blokes on other websites about this so I'm getting frazzled. Had some guy try to tell me the Commdore V8 was the most popular powertrain in the country. I don't know what data he used to pull that from but I've not seen anything to back that up.
 
edgie said:
I dunno I've been busy fighting with other blokes on other websites about this so I'm getting frazzled. Had some guy try to tell me the Commdore V8 was the most popular powertrain in the country. I don't know what data he used to pull that from but I've not seen anything to back that up.
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The 4.2 was popular back in Kingswood day's , mainly because the 3.3 Litre six was so crappy. But it was more expensive and never sold as much as the 6.

When i was working at Holden's proving ground for a couple of years , they were underselling the power from the V6 and overstating the V8.
Add the lighter weight of the V6 and the V6 was pretty much as much fun to drive as a V8.
They were practically hand building the V8's by then, the numbers were so low.

Volume was the key to everything.
A new design feature would cost X$million dollars to implement. You then had to divide the cost by the number of engines.
That's why we got the Ford USA , and Chevy V8. Design changes were forced to meet new emission targets.

Ford Australia doing the overhead cam on the AU, then the Barra was kind of incredible.

Just by the way, anyone who says their Holden V8 is more powerful , because they have a "special chip". Straight from the horses mouth, the injectors in the standard V8 were already pumping as much fuel as they could.
The engineers wanted bigger injectors, but they weren't readily available, and like i said, cost vs volume.
 
Far out, have I entered the 90s?

The Barra turbo was the peak anyway, purely because I had one. Pretty good condition xr6t with only about 160k on it for $4k. Absolute madness now, but that was a while ago.

It was kind of comical how bad the power outputs were when I was in high school, due to catalytic converters and such. V8s putting out 130kw. I had a 2L Camira putting out 87kw FFS.
 
SaintsSeptember said:
The 4.2 was popular back in Kingswood day's , mainly because the 3.3 Litre six was so crappy. But it was more expensive and never sold as much as the 6.

When i was working at Holden's proving ground for a couple of years , they were underselling the power from the V6 and overstating the V8.
Add the lighter weight of the V6 and the V6 was pretty much as much fun to drive as a V8.
They were practically hand building the V8's by then, the numbers were so low.

Volume was the key to everything.
A new design feature would cost X$million dollars to implement. You then had to divide the cost by the number of engines.
That's why we got the Ford USA , and Chevy V8. Design changes were forced to meet new emission targets.

Ford Australia doing the overhead cam on the AU, then the Barra was kind of incredible.

Just by the way, anyone who says their Holden V8 is more powerful , because they have a "special chip". Straight from the horses mouth, the injectors in the standard V8 were already pumping as much fuel as they could.
The engineers wanted bigger injectors, but they weren't readily available, and like i said, cost vs volume.
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The 253 (what's the 4.2 nonsense) is an absolute beast of a motor and surprisingly good economy. I won't hear an ill word about it. It left the factory doing well under potential.

What if they say their Holden V8 was more powerful because they have a special box of crystals?

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sobrave said:
Far out, have I entered the 90s?

The Barra turbo was the peak anyway, purely because I had one. Pretty good condition xr6t with only about 160k on it for $4k. Absolute madness now, but that was a while ago.

It was kind of comical how bad the power outputs were when I was in high school, due to catalytic converters and such. V8s putting out 130kw. I had a 2L Camira putting out 87kw FFS.
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My AWD Territory Turbo was magic. Some bastards stole it and trashed it.
I always thought it was as close to a Porsche Cayenne as i'd ever get.

Where i worked testing engine components, we could never get close to the rated power from the V8s on the dyno's.

Your 130Kw V8's were kind of ludicrous when Toyota started producing 1.6L 4 cylinders with 100Kw in the early 90s, and they DID achieve their rated power on the dyno.
 
edgie said:
The 253 (what's the 4.2 nonsense) is an absolute beast of a motor and surprisingly good economy. I won't hear an ill word about it. It left the factory doing well under potential.

What if they say their Holden V8 was more powerful because they have a special box of crystals?

398785770.png
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That got pretty political, because it was to be homologated onto a Holden car, and Holden couldn't fit an item with no function to their car.

An old bloke at Holden told me about when Holden had an official investigation into the polarizer.
Apparently they did laps with the straight car, then fitted the polarizer and did some more.
The polarizer was a smidge faster, but someone pointed out the track had been damp during the earlier runs.

He was telling me that one of the local ( proving ground) engineers at the time was a cigar smoker.
All the top management were there , no-one saying much when this guy slowly walked up, pulled out a cigar and lit it, took a puff and said, " this is the biggest load of bullshit i've seen in my life "
Management all pretended they didn't hear a thing, while the local workers tried not to roll around laughing like someone had told a biggest dickus joke.
 
SaintsSeptember said:
My AWD Territory Turbo was magic. Some bastards stole it and trashed it.
I always thought it was as close to a Porsche Cayenne as i'd ever get.

Where i worked testing engine components, we could never get close to the rated power from the V8s on the dyno's.

Your 130Kw V8's were kind of ludicrous when Toyota started producing 1.6L 4 cylinders with 100Kw in the early 90s, and they DID achieve their rated power on the dyno.
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You can get a Porsche cayenne for peanuts now... Gotta be prepared for it to be a total loss unless you can fix it yourself though.

I had a VW Touareg for a bit for the princely sum of 4k, which was only the V6 petrol, but still a beautiful car to drive. Trouble was it had problems, and I kept taking it back to a euro car place who had NFI... Ended up taking it to a rural mechanic who solved the issue in about 3 hours. Multiple water pumps and had a misdiagnosed leak on the second one at the back of the engine, which convalescesed its way slowly into the coil packs.id be driving along and get a misfire, pull over and pull out the coil and there'd be moisture inside of it.

Anyway, once I ahd that fixed I felt like the transmission was about to pack it in, so glad to get rid of it. But it still drove nice. When it was working well had a nice run in the sand dunes at canunda robe/beachport area on a 40 degree day and it didn't miss a beat.
 
SaintsSeptember said:
...

Your 130Kw V8's were kind of ludicrous when Toyota started producing 1.6L 4 cylinders with 100Kw in the early 90s, and they DID achieve their rated power on the dyno.
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People say the 253 was only 88kw by the end of it, sure I've got the most powerful stock version of it (except for the HDT ones) so I can't say, but I cannot believe the power figures dropped that much.

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edgie said:
People say the 253 was only 88kw by the end of it, sure I've got the most powerful stock version of it (except for the HDT ones) so I can't say, but I cannot believe the power figures dropped that much.

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When those engines were designed , no-one cared about fuel economy, petrol was cheap as chips.
The V8 was only slightly heavier than the Holden 6 with a lot more power ( i read about an engine swap of a 308 into a Nissan 260Z one time, and was surprised the V8 was lighter than Nissan's 2.6 six ). It got heavier when it was stiffened up later for fuel injection.
The six was like a tractor engine.
There was a 130Kw ( 175hp ) 253 , and the power probably peaked around 5000rpm , which is a lot more like a modern car than the old 6's which had peak power somewhere below 4000rpm. V8 was much smoother , quieter etc. The production engines were designed to be derivable with lots of low down torque to match 3 speed transmissions.

Contrast a Toyota with 2000 "killer wasps ". They hit that at 6200rpm. I don't think i've ever seen a Camry revving at 6200.
 
SaintsSeptember said:
When those engines were designed , no-one cared about fuel economy, petrol was cheap as chips.
The V8 was only slightly heavier than the Holden 6 with a lot more power ( i read about an engine swap of a 308 into a Nissan 260Z one time, and was surprised the V8 was lighter than Nissan's 2.6 six ). It got heavier when it was stiffened up later for fuel injection.
The six was like a tractor engine.
There was a 130Kw ( 175hp ) 253 , and the power probably peaked around 5000rpm , which is a lot more like a modern car than the old 6's which had peak power somewhere below 4000rpm. V8 was much smoother , quieter etc. The production engines were designed to be derivable with lots of low down torque to match 3 speed transmissions.

Contrast a Toyota with 2000 "killer wasps ". They hit that at 6200rpm. I don't think i've ever seen a Camry revving at 6200.
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I've been in arguments with people who try to tell me the 253 is just a 202 with worse economy and more weight, that it's a boat anchor. My 253 is the high compression so was rated for 138kw at the time. Done some minor things to it since then that have hopefully opened it up some more. Anyway, yes, those people who say those things, the only conclusion I can draw is that they've never driven a car, let alone the cars they are talking about. And as for economy, I don't find it noticeable worse than my normal ecotec V6 Commodore. Which I don't find noticeably worse than the Mitsubishi Mirage I sometimes drive... But I'm a small town person that does small town driving and don't do the volume of KMs required to really asses such things.

The worst economy feels like the 2005 Kluger (there's basically at any given time, six cars I could be driving).
 
edgie said:
I've been in arguments with people who try to tell me the 253 is just a 202 with worse economy and more weight, that it's a boat anchor. My 253 is the high compression so was rated for 138kw at the time. Done some minor things to it since then that have hopefully opened it up some more. Anyway, yes, those people who say those things, the only conclusion I can draw is that they've never driven a car, let alone the cars they are talking about. And as for economy, I don't find it noticeable worse than my normal ecotec V6 Commodore. Which I don't find noticeably worse than the Mitsubishi Mirage I sometimes drive... But I'm a small town person that does small town driving and don't do the volume of KMs required to really asses such things.

The worst economy feels like the 2005 Kluger (there's basically at any given time, six cars I could be driving).
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The 308 had 4 inch bore. ( same as a Chevy 350 ) , while the 253 had the same size bores as a 202 3 5/8 inch.
Apart from the pistons, rings and rings I'm not aware of any major differences between the two V8s.

Most V8's are crossflow, inlet in the Valley, exhausts out the side.
202 was never crossflow, the inlet was the same side as the exhaust, my understanding is that the flow through the head was a bottleneck in the design. Totally different to the 6.

The Chrysler hemi 6 was probably as good as the best at the time.

I just saw the weight specs for HQ Holdens, a 202 was 10Kg lighter than a 253 HQ

 
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