so i'm sitting at the chiropractor's office waiting for the ball & chain to get a tune up and i found a copy of popular science to skim through. on page 14 of the march 2013 issue there's an article about the mazda 6 and the new diesel offered in the 2014 model, available in late 2013. i'm no automotive engineer, but what i got out of it is that they are lowering the compression of the engine, which is allowing them to lower emissions and not need to use urea. the fuel economy is supposed to be 56mpg highway. there's also a capacitor charged by braking that helps to power the vehicle's electronics, supposedly helping to lessen the strain on the engine and help slightly with fuel economy. the base price of the vehicle is $20k and change, so you can probably figure $25k-$27k with whatever package is required to get the diesel. it still sounds like a winner to me.
another new diesel
- Thread starter lostcause
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rockshaft
Gold Member
Edmunds.com shows the Mazda 3 as having a diesel in this model year.
crazyal
Super Member
From the limited information I could find the MPG ratings are for Europe using the imperial gallon. It's likely it'll be around 40 mpg, still good if it can do that.
Dmace
Elite Member
We bought a new Mazda 3 in 2012, it has the new SkyActiv engine (direct injected 155HP 4cyl 2.0) and SkyActiv transmission (6 speed with rev matching and manual shifting). It feels like a lot more than 155HP and gets 38-40 mpg easily. No hybrid or special tricks either and 87 octane.
The SkyActive diesel looks good on paper but hopefully does better than their diesel race team which DNF'd almost every car entered with engine problems.
The SkyActive diesel looks good on paper but hopefully does better than their diesel race team which DNF'd almost every car entered with engine problems.
ah, that makes more sense. 56 seems a little extreme, though 40 doesn's sound like it is anything earth shattering. just the way i was reading it made it sound as if this design was revolutionary. i guess the low emssions with no urea is the big thing here and not any fuel economy boost. hopefully it is actually a little better than 40, because i don't know if 40 is quite enough to sell it. the competitors in the low 40's are barely justifiable. regardless of the cost of diesel, i guess you can't deny that burning 20-25% less fossil fuel to get from point a to b is a good thing.
Diamondpilot
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Yea, 40 is not going to cut it. Last week I had a standard Honda Civic rental car. It was doing 38 no problem. I have also has a Cruiz Eco and a Hyundai in the last two weeks that also did close to the 40 mark around town without spending $0.75 more per gallon for diesel
Chris
Dmace
Elite Member
You obviously don't realize your comparing a couple of MID SIZE cars to a FULL SIZE sedan. Right now the best mid size highway mpg is the severely underpowered Chevy Cruze with a 4 cyl turbo, I test drove a couple and they're useless. Went with the very fun 40mpg Mazda 3 instead.
As for Full Size sedans, the best right now is 35 for the Sonata (non-hybrid) and the 47 mpg Fusion hybrid. Although I've yet to see anyone consistently get 47 out of the Fusion hybrid.
At 40+ mpg with a simple non-hybrid diesel, the Mazda 6 makes perfect sense to compete with the 43 mpg Passat TDi.
Diamondpilot
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I realize that. I had a Chevy Impalla on Jan 9th that I drove to Perryville, Mo to pick up a jet from maintenance. Did it non stop in nearly 6 hrs. It got mid 30's with a basic V6. A diesel could not have done it any cheaper.
I am just not sold on diesels anymore. I did oil changes on both of my neighbors vehicle's last Saturday. 2007 Dmax and 2012 VW Diesel Passat. According to the dash the Dmax at 97,000 miles was 13.5. The Passat was at 28,000 miles and 38 mpg. For the $35,000 they paid for it there were smart buys that could be had like the offerings from Mazda, Hyundai, Nissan, Toyota, GM, Ford, and Dodge.
Chris
crazyal
Super Member
I don't know about the 6 but the best I could find was the CX-5 in Australia. The ratings they have listed are 5.7l/100km for the 2.2l diesel and 6.9l/ 100km for the 2.0 gas. 5.7 works out to about 42 mpg and 6.9 is 34 mpg. For an AWD SUV that's not bad. I think the VW Touareg is a little larger but it only gets 29 mpg. I'm not really sure of what would really be equal to the diesel CX-5. Still that's still almost a 25% increase over the gas engine.
