This Engine is the Reason You Don't Have Diesel Cars in America!!! 

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My dad bought a brand new Chevy truck in 1980 that had that 5.7 diesel. It blew up nearly instantly and the dealer put a 5.7 gas in for nothing as it was still in warranty and they couldn’t guarantee another diesel wouldn’t do the same thing so that was their answer to it. They knew they were junk.

love my '06 vw jetta1.9 diesel. 535,000 miles and still going strong.... gets 55mpg all the time...

My mom had an Olds Diesel station wagon. One cold fall morning she started it up, and it made a smoke cloud so impressive that my dad saw it from two blocks away and thought that our house was on fire...

We had a diesel VW Rabbit non-turbocharged 5-speed at that time. 44mpg and never had any issues with it.

My ex father-in-law was bitten by the Olds 350 diesel bug. He bought a new 79 Olds station wagon, forget the model. Supposed to be the greatest engine in the world. Six SETS of head gaskets, multiple lifters and two cams later, he's still poking fun at my 78 1.5 liter diesel Rabbit that got 54 mpg highway and in the thirties or better around town. About a month later the miracle Olds loses oil pressure. To boost his mileage, he used Arco graphite in it from day one. I asked my dad about graphite in oil, as it sounded good, at least on paper. He told me that when he was young (he was born in 1917) an oil company came out with graphite oil. The problem was that the graphite particles settled out of the oil when the engine was stopped, gradually plugging oil galleys in the block and passages throughout the engine. It seems that is exactly what happened to the miracle Olds. The block passages became plugged and starved the cam and crank of oil, the resulting metal took out the rest of the miracle Olds engine. Total mileage on the miracle Olds? 65K. I had bought my diesel Rabbit new and I had over 100 K on the engine at that time. I sold the Rabbit to a friend at 220K and he drove it for years before giving it to his son as a first car. The son wrapped it around a tree. Dead Rabbit. I loved a diesel engine that redlined at 5400rpm and held together for hundreds of thousands of miles.

I was a young used car manager back then. These cars were total junk. You could sit a gas car right next to a diesel and the diesel would sit for months. We basically had to give them away. Now that being said Mercedes Benz 220D, 240D and 300D along with VW Rabbit cars and Rabbit pickups with diesel motors ran great and we sold them as fast as they hit the lot.

Mom bought an 81 rabbit diesel for 7200 out the door. Those little fellas are some of the best diesels of the time , ran rings around the domestic garbage as far as reliability.

I worked at a GMC dealer 77-82.Problems we had with the 350 diesel were rear main seal fails,pistons would black hole,blocks would break at the main cap webbing.Fuel injector and pump fails.Glow plug fails.The first batch had some sort of plating on the fuel injector lines.Inside and out.The plating would flake of and travel to the injector and take out the injectors.We just kept working on them.

My Grandpa had a 80's Chevy Caprice with the diesel 350. It eventually got handed down to me when i was in need. That old car had a million miles ( not really but it was a bunch anyway) and was still running fine when it got wrecked. I loved that old car. Cant tell you how many time I got yelled at at the fuel station for putting diesel in it.... even though you could hear the darn thing running from across town 😂😂.

Anecdotally, it's true that GM ruined the image of diesel cars in the US for a whole generation. Largely it came down to bean counters, which GM seemed to have in abundance. From a theoretical perspective, the engine was clever; GM took inspiration from the ubiquitous Ricardo Comet prechamber ("swirl chamber") design but significantly modified it, and the result was a slightly quieter and smoother engine. But, no water/fuel separator, no additional head bolts, primitive TTY head bolts, little to no dealer and customer education, etc. What a shame. You are correct in that the later 4.3 V6 was a better offering. My grandparents had a Pontiac 6000 with a 4.3 diesel and it proved to be *reasonably* reliable while they owned it. Not fast of course, but I do recall them raving about the fuel economy. Nearly 40mpg on the freeway in a roomy GM A-body. Not bad for the era, or even now

The thinking behind the design was to keep costs to retool cheaper. However, a lot of diesel enthusiasts I've talked with have stated, the 5.7 and 4.3 diesel blocks were stronger than the gas versions to handle the higher compression. But all the tooling was kept pretty much the same so they could keep costs down during manufacturing. Being that these were indirect injection engines, kind of explains the higher compression ratio. The later GM 6.2, 6.5, International 6.9 and 7.3 were all IDI and had over 20:1 compression. By the end of the Olds diesels production, they had pretty much had them mostly all figured out, but the reputation was already tarnished and were discontinued.

We were a Chevy dealer during the era of these engines. We traded for a Olds Delta 88 with a diesel that drove to the dealership. On Monday morning I got in the car to move it, and when I started it-- the crankshaft broke. It was under warranty so Oldsmobile replaced the engine. We had sold a diesel Monte Carlo that had a recall-- we were supposed to inspect the injection pump for a yellow dot-- supposedly if it had the yellow dot it was OK-- and it did. Well, sometime after the folks purchased it the governor weight retainer ring broke, the engine went wide open, would not shut off with the ignition key, and the wife drove it 15 miles to the dealership holding it with the brakes. We took plyers and pinched off the fuel return line and killed the engine. Had to replace all the brake calipers, rotors, and drums-- and repaired the injector pump. Folks kept the car. I was at a Chevrolet zone meeting when the 6.2 came out-- and one of the higher ups told us how the 6.2 was a clean sheet design-- which it was-- and how the 350 was "a black mark on the face of general Motors"....

The GMC Yukon has an available Duramax diesel. Not the abundance of diesel vehicles like back in the Olds years but not entirely gone either.

I had to replace a few head gaskets on those atrocious shitboxes. I remember the passenger side was a real chore because of the heater box hanging off the firewall so you had to pull the whole engine a trans assembly forward to get the head off since the heads of the headbolts would snap off due to the high compression in what was a modified gasoline engine. We would run a quart diesel fuel through the crankcase to clean the Penzoil sludge from the crankcase doing an oil change. Diesel fuel quality was atrocious back in the 80's, these cars clattered, smoked and stank like diesel ass. I will whole heartily agree that GM is singularly responsible for killing passenger car diesel applications in the US forever more! GM = General Mishap.

Worst then the maxforce? What worst then the 6.4? My mind is blown just like most the above units

From what I remember, if you found a good mechanic that knew what to do to fix the 5.7 diesel, it could be a good engine, kind of along the lines of the fixes that went into fixing the 6.0 and 6.4 Navistar engines that Ford used in their pickups

My father had a1978 Oldsmobile 98 with a diesel motor in it. It leaked oil from everywhere! The dealership garage had engines all over the place laying on the ground! We owned it for about 6 months before my dad traded it in. What junk ! My father purchased a 1978 300SD turbodiesel and it ran forever! We also owned a VW rabbit diesel and it had a 5 speed manual. 55mpg on highway,40 in the city. Kept it 10 years. Never had a problem with it until I sold it to a neighbor and he ran it without coolant and burned up the motor.

Tales from an old guy. In 1978 i bought a new Scottsdale 1/2 ton with olds 350 diesel. She was rigged out for flagging and pilot car. It got fantastic milage about 24 - 27 mpg. It burnt almost nothing idling all day, running all the beacons and wig-wags. Amazing! This is before LED's, and was retrofitted with 270 amp Leece- Neville alternator that puts out 140 amps at idle. Was very lucky, put 120,000 km on her without any major issues. Had her on Finning oil sampling program. Metals were very high from new. Changed oil every 3000 km. Put issapro v8 pyrometer on it. Would easily go to 1100F. Never took her above 850F! The small factory oil filter was joke, about 23 microns I remember??? Searched through NAPA catalog and found a 9 micron hydraulic filter that had the same threads and base. This filter was about twice as long as factory and 2 inches wider! Was really pissed as pickup had ZERO resale value, dealer wouldn't take it as a trade! Dont know about US, but GM Canada after a few years eventually had a generous trade in for origional owners against buying new 6.2 detroit diesel. Needless to say i traded her in for another Scottsdale 20 with 6.2. Another lemmon... Did not like been driven hard. High EGT's Lots of 6.2's died from over heating... Well not nearly as bad as the Olds, used oil and lots of issues, and warranty updates, of course lots not covered!!! Applied many of the tricks from my Olds to the 6.2. She faired much better than most. Soon as Ford came out with the 6.9 IDI, traded her in for 1986 ugly F250. They were ugly! Not a power house, but lot more than 6.2 and you could drive 6.9 hard and did not complain or break down. EGT's Never above 900F period! Ended up been best truck I have owned. Better fuel milage than 6.2. No oil consumption, between 6000 km oil changes Finning oil samples were always excellent. IDI's will have cavitaion damage unless additive levels are montitored. Put 380,000 km on f250. Couple glow plugs was only repairs. Never used any oil or had blowby. Sold it to another pilot car operator. She put another 300,000 km on it trouble fee! Bought new 1990 F350 supercab with 7.3 IDI turbo diesel (not a power stroke), another trouble free truck! PS Ford rated the IDI turbo at 190hp as not to undercut the new PowerStroke 215 hp coming out in 1994. Stock IDI pulles the same grade at same speed as Powerstroke. Obviously the Powerstroke is electronic engine and starts much better in the cold and probably more generous hp and torque curves. But stock vs stock there was almost no difference.

I've heard the later DX block olds diesels were pretty solid But by the time those came out the damage was already done

When you started explaining what Oldsmobile was, several joints started hurting and I think my elbow popped from old age........ It didn't even occur to me that there are people that don't know what Oldsmobile is or was

*GM, circa 1938:* creates the two-stroke 71 series Detroit Diesel engines for literally every application - generators, boats, trains, trucks, farm equipment, even military equipment - design lasts well through WWII and as far ahead as the 1990's. *GM, circa 1978:* effectively kills the market for diesel powered passenger cars in the US with the Oldsmobile 350 diesel.

Your initial premise is wrong. The only real similarity between the olds "rocket 350" (gasser) and the olds 350 oil motor was package size, and mount placements. The 350 diesel was a clean sheet design, and actually fairly well designed and engineered (as opposed to the fuel pincher). Look, the REAL problem with the 350 diesel was manufacturing. The old method of block casting required "seasoning". An iron casting experiences "dimensional creep" for a period of time after it emerges from the sand/die. You can take the raw castings, pile them up for 6 to 8 months, and all the internal stresses equalize. You can accelerate that by subjecting them to artificial seasoning, a series of heating/cooling cycles over a few weeks, same result. The standard at the time was cast, artificial season, then begin production machining. Result: nice dimensionally stable castings that became dimensionally stable machines/parts. Ok, mid 70s, GM was looking to streamline production, lean out inventory, and cut energy costs. In a biz where you replace a steel stamping with an injection molded plastic bit to save 2 cents per unit, the idea of eliminating a costly operation like artificial seasoning would be manna from heaven. Well, their iron supplier sold them those magic beans. A new "space age" iron alloy. A little more expensive, but, according to R&D testing, fresh from cast stable. Unfortunately, the testing was fairly simple shapes, geometric webs like triangles, ls, circles, notched bars kinda thing. GM was setting up a brand new line to produce the 350 diesel, so setting it up for "magic bean metallurgy" made sense, as all the other lines still had service life left, and tooling wear was being used for piecemeal conversion to metric fasteners. So, model rollout was brand new design, brand new alloy, brand new production method. BRILLIANT, it was gonna flagship a new era. Well, reality reared it's ugly head, and bit them, HARD. The new motor was seasoning in service. Sure, less creep than the old alloy would have, but enough to kill alignment. Lifter shelfs wandered, cam bearing bores lost alignment, mains doe see doed right, left, fore, aft... basic catastrophe. Eventually, they kowtowed to reality, introduced seasoning on the oil burner line, and cured it. But it was too late. Sure, there were standard "new stuff" teething problems too, but the REAL problem was the casting production cycle. By the time everybody responsible admitted the ball was dropped, NOBODY on earth would buy an olds diesel. Hell, you couldn't give them away anymore, and they tried. Customers wouldn't even take a free trade to a properly built one, they switched to gas engines from the junkyards instead. THAT is the real story of the failure of the old diesel debacle.

Hey, youtube unsubscribed me and I almost missed my own comment being featured! You know, after the failure of the 5.7 Olds diesel; GM went across the street to their Detroit Diesel division and had them design a new diesel engine from the ground up. It was the 6.2 Detroit diesel. Technically it is all GM and the engineers from Detroit just designed it. They specified a forged crankshaft but the bean counters at GM went with a cast crankshaft. Detroit engineers said there would be failures. GM said; "We can accept that if it saves a penny". The 6.2 was released in 1982 in a naturally aspirated format and actually is a far better engine than the 5.7; but not without problems. Main web cracking, crankshaft failures, and a very modest power (135 hp) output. But they did deliver incredible mileage for the time in some very heavy and large vehicles. Later the 6.2 became the 6.5 and eventually turbo charged. By todays light truck standards the 6.5 is a toad. But for the time; it was a decent engine for power, economy, and reliability.

During this time period we had the famous 5 points at levittown, pennsylvania gasoline price riot. 5 points meaning an intersection where 3 roads met. There were 3 gas stations there, all 40 yards apart. From 1977 to 1981 gasoline went from 40 cents a gallon to 1.30 gallon. Apparently the prices rose quickly, leaving gm short on time to research and develop these diesel power plants. The economy was really bad, its a time when our factories and steel mills started dying quickly. We havent had such a bad economy since 1980

Perhaps the only good thing that came from the Olds 350 diesel were the lifters... roller lifter that GM uses as well as the 6.9, 7.3, 6.0, and 6.4 IH/Navistar/Ford engines.

Everyone thinks that it was a converted gas engine. It was NOT. It actually was designed to be a diesel. There was only five head bolts per cylinder. The hydraulic lifters were not ported right and oil starved. The pistons didn't have a large enough bowl to swirl the explosion which put excessive pressure on the head gasket fire rings. Another thing about those times was the labor unrest. There were many many sabotage and failure of pride in the workforce. I've worked on cars that was so poorly built it's amazing they even made it the factory door. Engines with not loose but missing main bolts, found pounds of hardware floating around under the valve covers and lifter valley, oil pump pickup bent up that it was barely in the oil, and many more. I didn't get much bodyshop work but they were straight out and was asked to look at a Rt door window problem on a C10. The whole door was filled with gravel up to the window regulator. That means the door was filled up before it was assembled and installed.

I had friends that had Cadillacs and Cutlass with those junk olds diesels. they were terrible Europe still sell a lot of Diesel cars. my son was styationed in germany he had a small car with a diesel i forhet the name of it but it got 60 mpg. the new 1500 chevy diesels are getting 30 mpg. only bad thing is they have a timing belt at the rear of the engine thats a $2,000 job to replace

What about the famous Mercedes OM617 diesel? Those things are still on the road doing millions of miles. They sold a lot those w123 e class cars in North America and elsewhere.

Good video. Oldsmobile also made a 4.3 V8 Diesel for the 1979 model year only. A much-needed water/fuel separator was finally added to the 5.7 Diesel lineup in 1985 (the last year for the production of the Olds Diesel). However, it was too little too late. The D block (1978-1980) was replaced with a beefier DX block in 1981. The DX blocks solved many of the bottom-end issues that plagued the D block. The D blocks were known to experience broken crankshafts and for literally pulling the main cap bolts out of the block because of short bolts. The top end of the DX block still only had four TTY bolts to a cylinder. The head bolt clamping ability still wasn't good enough to withstand a 22.5 to 1 compersion ratio, so they continued to blow head gaskets. The 4.3 V6 Diesel had six head bolts per cylinder. If the 5.7 could have started out with this it would have been a far different outcome for that engine. If an owner of a DX block knew how to maintain one and if he drove it gently it could last. Some went for many miles because of knowledgeable treatment.

Some 4.3 diesels made it into Generac generators. I think they were factory leftovers that Generac bought on the cheap. They used to do that a lot, maybe still do. "Engine of the month" the dealer techs called it.

There were a ton of Mercedes diesels back then. But obviously that was a niche market. Some of the best passenger diesels ever made, though.

“Mid 1970s cars were huge , cars were hideous” Hey at least they look better then cars now days , they actually have character and color.

My Dad had a custom cruiser station wagon looked like the car on national lampoon vacation. It was a pile of junk. 3 target master engine's lol

My mom had a wagon with the 350 diesel. That car was a beast! It ran great and we took it on a lot of trips.

i find this kinda funny cause i have heard so many horror stories of the horrible olds 350 diesel , and have known quite a few people who had these cars and had problems with them ,,but my story is a bit different ,, i got my first car in 1988 when i was then 14 ,, this was a then 7 year old ,Olds cutlass LS 4 door , it had the 5.7 liter diesel and it ran great it had 70,000 original miles and 0 rust ,,living in the country i had my school license so i could drive to school and work ,i drove this car all through high school and for a long time afterward ,, in 1993 the year i finished school , my brother and I actually replaced the transmission and swapped it with a 5 speed out of a chevy half ton truck NV3500 i think it was ,,this helped the sort of under powered car not only get better fuel mileage , it wasn't really bad to start with , averaged about 25-28 with the automatic ,with the 5 speed that raised to 35 and on a long road trip could easily pass 40 ,a year or 2 after the manual trans swap i decided to try adding a turbo charger to it ,this was a success ,i used a turbo meant for a 5.9 liter cummins and it worked perfect ,,the exhaust was the hard part but i made it work ,,it increased my fuel mileage a little more but the big change was it no longer was such a dog in hills ,,i finally parked this old car in 2015 after having it for over 25 years ,it was very tired by this time ,the engine had passed 300,000 miles and i never had to take it apart ,,the car itself was pretty worn out and being over 30 years old was rusting away too

The REO in Diamond REO trucks stands for Ransom E. Olds, the founder of Oldsmobile. It was his next venture after selling Oldsmobile to General Motors. There were 3 Oldsmobile diesels, 4.3 l 260 CI V8, 5.7 l 350 CI V8 and the 4.3 l 260 CI V6. I never got into the Olds V6 Diesel but the 350 and 260 V8 blocks and cranks were better than what was used in the gasoline engine, the only difference in the 2 V8's was the bore size. They had thicker cylinder walls and a forged nodular iron crankshaft, and used the main journal size of the big block Olds 3.00" as opposed to the small blocks 2.5. The later DX block received .921" roller lifters over the previous .842 flat tappets. The 350 block is still desirable for building gas strokers. The main problem these diesels had was head gaskets and not having a water separator in the fuel system, with ultra low sulfer fuel having a supporting role. And the reason we're still talking about how bad it was 40 years later is because the issue is even more misunderstood now than it was then. But did this engine alone ruin the diesel market? No because it was also very expensive to have the fuel system of a VW rabbit serviced. Most automotive shops were grasping at straws when it came to diesels and diesel shops didn't really want to mess with them. VW dealers weren't everywhere. At least Oldsmobile dealerships were nearly everywhere and their mechanics were usually top notch.

Yep Josh, my first ever aquisition from a bona fied dealership here in Phoenix (The Buzzard) was from the used lot. Absolutely beautiful '85 Olds Cutlass Supreme Brougham (diesel) circa '86 or so. Luckily for me one of the 2 main 12 volt batteries went out just about the time I'd learned that this particular motor is going to have problems. They took it right back & we drove out in a '79 GMC Vandura. Put over a quarter million of the hardest miles possible on that van. Great trip down memory lane. Cheers!

It also didn't help that customers didn't know about the differences between diesel and gas, and weren't really properly educated on things like anti-gel additives or glow plug cycling. This just piled on top of the reliability issues.

My mother in law has a Chevy Equinox with diesel engine. It was only offered 2018-2019 so they do keep trying.

Isn’t it funny how diesel was ALWAYS cheaper than gas as it should be because it’s a biproduct of making gasoline, right up until the 5.9 Cummins and 7.3 powerstrokes really got popular and the government realized they should be cashing in on this.

I remember my Dad purchased a brand new 1981 Chevrolet Chevette. It was powered by a 51 hp Isuzu diesel. Incredibly good fuel economy, but I remember it's highlight performance was the shift from 1st to 2nd. After that? it was all over for the performance part .

I remember that the EPA was pushing US automotive manufacturers to raise their CAFE Corporate Average Fuel Economy at that time. The easiest way was to install lightweight V-8 diesels by the hundreds of thousands. What they didn't count on was that the US population drove these underpowered vehicles the same as traditional gasoline fueled vehicles. Cold starting could be a nightmare. Water in the diesel fuel destroyed injection pumps but was hardly noticed in gasoline vehicles. The engines were gutless, had different service requirements, and were quirky. Diesel fuel wasn't available at every gas station like it is now. In cold climates, the heater barely worked, too. What I recall was that diesel powered US cars of that era had a good start by promising great fuel economy and cheap fuel which cost less than gasoline back then. But as soon as somebody you knew started having troubles with their diesel car, the bad reputation spread quickly. Mercedes and VW diesel cars had far better engineering for decades and their owners were happy. But the drive toward CAFE ruined the US diesel vehicle market very quickly. Europe had small turbo diesel powered vehicles that were far more successful for decades but diesel popularity never really caught on in the USA aside from pickup trucks.

Josh, I had a 1980s Audi. It was a diesal and got 45 to 50 miles to the gallon. The main problem absolutely no power. Great in town car sucked on the highway.

Our neighbor bought a Diesel suburban back in early 80s, we use to camp with them, first trip to Fla they had issues all the way down towing a 20ft camper, got it fixed during the 2 weeks we were in Fla, motor blew up 40mi from home. He ended up ripping that POS Out and put a small Detroit outa some mid sized dump truck, all i remember as a kid was the whole back of Suburban was black with soot, and when they drove by it huffed clouds of black smoke. Boy did that truck pull! They put some big standard transmission in it. Ill find out what motor and trans it was and comment. What a cool truck for the early 80s

GM engineering has always fallen victim to the bean counters, Corvair, Vega, Chevy engines in other brands, the list is long if one does the research. Best car I ever had for the wifes commuter was a fancy 81 Pontiac Brougham sedan, she loved it and never let her down. Of course I did take pains to use fresh fuel and service the fuel filter. It did lose a intake valve at 55k miles, but my 73 Pontiac lost an exhaust valve @ 42k. Kept that Bonneville for 10 years and sold it for pretty good money. The average American driver isn't up to any complexity then and now. Speaking of complexity, it hasn't gotten any better over the years, believe me, I'm in automotive service. Still plenty of sad stories in the naked city.

Good video, Josh. As always. I owned an ‘81 Bonneville with the 5.7 diesel engine. Great car, 30mpg with a 30 gallon fuel tank. I drove the car gently and finally lost a head gasket at 100k miles. The shop manager came out to confirm that the engine had never been opened up before. Sometime after that I swapped in a gas engine. I could have driven that diesel car from MD to Fl nonstop if I had a catheter. :)

We had two oldsmobiles with the diesel. Not only was the engine design the same as Josh said, the engine was completely gutless. I remember it would only get above 80mph if you were going downhill with a wind at your back lol. The engine ruined an otherwise excellent car. The The larger bodied Oldsmobiles of the 80s looked good, very comfortable interior, and rode very nice. If a guy found a rust free one and put in an LS and a built transmission, it would be an incredible car.

I believe the 6.5 detroits and the international 7.3 idis both had 21:1 compression ratios also

I'm going to pause at 0:49 to guess that it will be the Olds 350 diesel. EDIT: That wasn't a hard guess really. When I was in high school, I had this Chevrolet Caprice. It had a 305 gasoline V8 in it with a 350 turbo transmission. It also had a brake booster that ran off the power steering pump, and prominently displayed on the inside of the fuel filler door and the gas gauge were the words "DIESEL FUEL ONLY". It was a diesel caprice that someone had swapped a gasoline engine into.

The only reason GM has any luck with diesels now is because they are made by Isuzu. Perhaps they should farm out their current gasoline engines also as their quality seems to have gone the way of the Olds diesel.

I have always been a fan of diesel power for passenger vehicles. When Oldsmobile came out with a diesel, I really wanted one. Until the reports came out about all the failures due to poor engine design. It made no sense since diesels had been around for many years. Mercedes made the 240D sedan which was an excellent reliable car, but it sold for $10500 which was a lot of money in the 70’s. It wasn’t until Ford started putting the 6.9 IH diesel in pickup trucks that I finally owned a diesel vehicle. That truck went over 250,000 miles with only a head gasket replacement. Sold it to a friend who drove it for another 250,000 miles. I owned three other Ford diesels with IH engines and loved them. In 2013 I bought a VW Passat TDI with the 2 liter turbocharged diesel. I got 45-50 mpg on the highway and it paid for itself as I did over 39,000 miles annually. Unfortunately this was the engine that cause the big issue with falsified emissions tests that cost VW billions. I still have that car and love it. The only problems I’ve had were emissions related; a failed EGR cooler which VW paid for along with new radiator, heater core and coolant surge tank. Total cost was over $4,000 but VW picked up the whole tab. It’s a shame that diesel automobiles have gotten a bad reputation in the American market. They will reliability run thousands of miles with just normal maintenance. Although my diesel VW has 170,000 miles, there is no smoke, no odor when it runs. It’s only slightly noisier than a gas powered car but still gets over 45 mpg. Most people don’t know it’s a diesel unless I tell them.

You forgot to mention about broken crankshafts. Absolutely hilarious

I remember the Olds/GM/Cadillac diesel 350s for the incredible clatter the engines made. Even at idle they sounded like a room full of welders pounding away at slag on their weld beads. The auto news at that time featured stories of broken wrist pins, broken connecting rods, and blown head gaskets, and how inadequate the gas engine design was for diesel use. Their sluggish performance did not help their reputation as boat anchors. As I recall, GM was not alone in trying to modify a gas engine to use as a diesel - Ford produced a boat engine diesel from a gas engine design but the timing had to be retarded to make it survive, so the fuel economy was poor.

Diesel doesn't make much sense in America either because you have such cheap gas

One of my uncles had a diesel Chevrolet pickup, a complete POS. I knew a couple folks with Oldsmobile diesels, lots of blow-by and horrible oil leaks. Ford's Mercury/Merkur division used a solid BMW diesel engine, but Ford dropped the Merkur division after just a couple years.

16:1 is boosted, 21:1 is natural. The Olds diesel is NOT a conversion, the tooling was shared.

The biggest detriment to diesel powered cars in the US is the EPA and their ludicrous standards...Every year they raise the bar on their standards...Maintaining a modern emissions diesel is so expensive its not even worth buying one anymore...What a damn shame...I'd love to be driving a 4 cyl turbo diesel 4x4 pickup or station wagon that gets 30-40 mpg...But not when the dpf system costs thousands to keep clear...

In the UK/Europe its not uncommon for petrol/gas engine designs to be developed in to diesels successfully. Probably the best example is the Perkins Prima engine, its basically a 2.0 OHC Austin Rover gas engine that Perkins converted to diesels for cars and small vans. Its not exactly a refined engine, being a 1980s mechanical direct injection setup, but they are very reliable, robust units

The blocks were substantially beefed up, even from the start. However they left the head bolts alone. They later upsized the bolts. A big contributor to their issues was lack of a fuel-water separator combined with poorer quality diesel at the time. That, and lack of owner education. Using cheap gasoline oils greatly accelerated the wear on these. There also was, early on, a 4.3L V8 version that only lasted a year or 2. If you added a water separator, used quality oils, had the larger headbolts, and stayed on top of maintenance, they were a reliable engine, although gutless. If GM would've run water separators, jumped to the larger bolts immediately (or revised to 5 or 6 bolt versus 4..) and educated buyers better, it would have made a massive difference. Alas. IDI engines tend to run much higher compression. Look up the Toro-Flow Diesel. Even earlier than these.

Blaming the Oldsmobile diesel as the reason we don't have diesel car today is not fair. Blame it on Volkswagengate and all the stupid emissions we have today. No diesel engine manufacturer today can say that they have the most reliable diesel engine. Now if Oldsmobile had a good reliable engine back then maybe other manufacturers would have try better. But Ford offered a believe the Thunderbird with a Bmw diesel and Jeep offered a the cherokee with a Peugeot or Renault Diesel and none fate better than the Oldsmobile. Oldsmobile just sold 20 times better than any other manufacturer so they got the worst feedback then. I'm a firm believer in diesel engines, I own 2 5.7 a 6.2 a 7.3 2 Mercedes diesel a Peugeot 504 and 2006 Jeep liberty CRD. But I would avoid anything after 2007.

Actually last Chevy's diesel car offering which was Chevy Cruze is actually pretty reliable with good MPG. But then again it was European Opel design, and US is not into car anymore.

It's sad these were so poorly designed and built because when they ran, they were supreme smooth runners with fuel mileage between 30-36 mpg. Also they were some torquey monsters in the 1981 Chevy Caprice Classic 4-dr. And another thing, though they were loud on the outside, on the inside you didn't hear a thing. I had one so I know. The failure on that car - injection pump. I think had GM not rushed this engine to market and spent a little more R&D time with that motor including the use of ARP cylinder head studs instead of stock bolts, I think the engine would've been Top Dawg. I love those engines more than anyone but it was a shot in the dark for GM and they messed up bad because that was one incredible power house especially for the large cars - this time not talking Peterbilt or Kenworth. And yes, they had glow plugs for more winter fun in northern states. It's just too bad for current EPA regs on diesels because I would love to have seen someone redesign and build a replacement version of this engine from the ground up, which now is almost moot since we no longer have land yachts for cars but maybe it would've been good for pickup trucks.

GM also had the "diesel" 350 in some of their pick-up market as well at that time. They were basically almost as horrible. Pretty much a 350 passes converted and it was junk. We have progresses leaps and bounds being the tech of the 80's, but some of the actions of the car companies, lives on in consumer reluctance.

Mercedes really made the only viable diesel car engine in the 80's, it made 125hp and it was as reliable as a stone axe.. unfortunately it was expensive and probably suffered a little negative memory about being German in the US. After that VW made a really solid offering with their TDI's, up until they got busted cheating the system. Best I know other than Mercedes and VW no one has offered a really good diesel passenger car here in the states.

Early 80's as an auto insurance adjuster for a major ins co in So Cal, I walked into a small rural GM dealership in Perris Ca to check out a wreck that had been towed into it. Guess I took a different route wandering behind the Dealership to the bone yard, as I came around a corner there was a large lot with nothing in it but hundreds of G.M. diesel engines sitting side by side, row after row. I realized this was the Perris graveyard for the infamous GM diesel us Ford lovers had been laughing about for the last few years. Part of my job was to get photos of the vehicles I checked out and get photos I did with those old push the button, pull 3 levers and the picture would roll out of the front, cameras. Someone came running out of a building screaming I wasn't supposed to see this area and demanded the photos back. No way. I had too much fun flashing the pictures anytime someone started in on how great GM was.

Compression of 20-22.5 is not unusual in non turbocharged diesel engines. Modern turbocharged diesels are usually 14.5-16.5.

VW’s Dieselgate scandal quite firmly put the final nail in the coffin of diesel passenger cars here. Even if you can make them, regulators aren’t going to approve them without a ridiculous amount of scrutiny. The Olds Diesel debacle mostly killed diesel in passenger cars, VW finished the idea off for good.

Take a look at Deboss Garage here on RU-vid. They’re in the process of creating a kit to convert existing pickup trucks to a small diesel that will run a generator to charge the onboard batteries. They’re going to have axles with the electric motor mounted that can be swapped into the pickup. Shouldn’t have to look too hard as they very recently came out with another video explaining what they’re doing. He’s in Canada which makes me wonder how they’ll get this to fly with their fascist government. Very interesting project just the same.😬

Some of the problems were from uneducated owners.. people put the same 10w 40 gas oil in their new olds diesel. Also when a glow plug quits they didn't know how to fix it so they used starting fluid . Usually way too much of it. The rest like head gaskets and no water separating filter was on gm.

I was very much aware of the diesel Oldsmobile. Most people I knew at the time thought it was a farce and would have nothing to do with it. One of my bosses at the time thought it was great. He soon found out otherwise after he purchased a new POS. The other boss bought a Volkswagen diesel and was happy happy...

I know someone that bought one in a fancy full size Olds. The injector pump leaked in the basement garage, weeks to replace and it leaked again. Head gaskets went and during the repair process a bolt got dropped in the intake. Scratch the engine. The dealership owner had lent his personal car, a Caddy, and really wanted it back. This guy told him write me a check for what I paid for that pos, and you can have the Caddy back. He took that check and went to Mercedes dealer. That was a good reliable diesel...

Two biggest issues with the 5.7 was it didn’t have enough head bolts and there was no water fuel separator…the 6.2 was a much better engine…I will say as bad as the 5.7 was, the 4.3 diesel was actually better than the 5.7, which isn’t saying much…if they had have did a little more R&D they could have knocked it our of the park with those engines because they did in fact achieve what they set out to do with those engines in the fact they were amazing on fuel!…they not only had very similar designs to their gas counterparts but they also had the same harmonic balancers as the gas engines which in the end was detrimental to the bottom ends of those engines!…if you have a diesel engine you need a harmonic balancer for a diesel…

*I Freaking Love my 2002 VW Jetta TDI 1.9 TurboDiesel engine 5 speed manual 330.,000 miles, 52.75 mpg car.* I also have a 1998 Mercedes E300 D with the OM606 TurboDiesel engine known to be the best Diesel car engine ever built ! F the US Government for their Corrupt Manipulation of Environmental laws to keep these fantastic cars out of the USA ! *FJB too !*

The 350 gm diesels survived better in warmer climates. The olds diesel come from North Carolina and didn’t survive in Syracuse NY.

The EPA has no brains. They added an EGR to diesels. This cools combustion temps which reduces NOX (nitric oxide) production. It also clogs the intake(s) and makes you throw the thing away. Now, cooler temps is bad on diesel engines. They are DESIGNED to run hot. Being cold, they produce a lot of soot due to improper combustion. What do they do? They add a soot collector (the DPF) which then needs to spray diesel on the soot to burn it at around 1,200f. Now we're hot and producing NOX again, so we need an SCR system (DEF is sued here) to reduce NOX. The DPF will eventually clog and require replacement costing thousands of dollars, because as the soot burns into ash, ash clogs it up. Yay! A vehicle that could last 50yrs now lasts ten and then gets thrown away! So much better for the planet, burying or scrapping cars. If NOX is the enemy, why not just add an SCR system and let the stupid engine work? We don't need EGRs clogging the engine up or DPFs clogging the exhaust up. Either way NOX is created and DEF reduces or eliminates it, so why not scrap the EGR and DPF? Our EPA is so unintelligent...

So thats the reason.. well.. one among many probably.. as an European I still find it very hard to grasp why americans put gas engines in so many heavy commercial vehicles, especially vehicles that need towing power and so on.. nobody here would put a gas engine into anything thats heavier than 2 tons (there are exceptions, but generally everything thats in any way meant to work for its money is a diesel)

Your analysis is spot on. I'm 66 and I remember everyone with these engines having failures. Virtually no one wanted to own a diesel can after that. At the time I pointed out that small diesel engines for delivery trucks cost twice what these diesel engines cost (with similar power). That was of course because the delivery truck diesel engines were designed to be a diesel from the start and everything was far more robust - and they did not have unusual failure issues.

Apart from the engine just being piece of a company being cheapskates, the fact automatic transmissions were used? It was almost impossible to find a diesel engine with automatic option any where in the world in those years. Maybe Mercedes offered it in high end models.

The Oldsmobile 5.7 diesel was not just a 350 cubic inch small block chevy v8 that had been "dieselized". It had larger diameter main and rod journals with thicker, stronger connecting rods. There were two versions of this engine produced. Both were precombustion diesels. The early engines had flat "slip-n-slide" hydraulic lifters. GM solved the problems with lifters around 1980 by going to a roller lifter design. The other big problem with those engines was the fuel system. GM used a 4-hole Roosamaster "pencil nozzle" similar to the 4 hole pencil nozzles used in the Caterpillar 3208. A multihole injection nozzle should never be used in a precombustion diesel design. Precombustion diesel engines use an open, pintle nozzle. The other problem with the Olds diesel fuel system was the injection pump. They used a Roosamaster rotary injection pump. The Roosamaster rotary injection pump was a great pump for four cylinder engines, and even six cylinder engines. But when they tried to produce eight cylinder injection pumps for the Olds diesel V8, they ran into problems with injection beginning for one cylinder before injection ended in the previous cylinder. These were called "phasing overlap problems". I should point out that Roosamaster solved the phasing problems in the eight-cylinder rotary pumps, and those pumps were highly successful in the Ford/Navistar 7.3 liter IDI pickup truck engines. The main message from the Oldsmobile 5.7 diesel engine is that a diesel design should be started with a clean, blank drawing board. GM never should have tried to cobble together a bunch of off-the-shelf parts for a quick and easy diesel engine design.

I utterly and totally disagree. This engine was totally designed to be a shit-show to keep from having to make reliable engines with long lives. It wasn't incompetence, it was built to fail.

I remember the 350 gm diesel. There was only one way to describe the engine it was no good. I never owned one but knew several who owned these vehicles with this engine. It was hard to find independt shops that would work on the engine. It's been years since I have saw one they were sorry engines from day one. This engine almost destroyed the market for small diesel engines in cars and light trucks. Now the exhaust filters and associated components has destroyed the diesel engine for cars. There are still some customers who want diesel engines in 3/4 ton and one ton trucks.

My Olds GM Diesel Pickup got 41 miles to the gallon. But it destroyed the camshaft, 3 head gaskets

North America is simply incapable of making small diesel engines that work I am from Europe and laughing

Was a dealership GM Master tech toward the end of era and head gaskets injection pumps were the big deal with cam shaft related problems Plus a few with shorted wiring harness diodes that wouldn’t shut off. Imagine that starting was usually the hard part. Then they follow with the 6.5 and warranted injection pumps what seemed like forever wasn’t a lot of fun 😅

Back in the 70s, a diesel Mercedes could easily last 500,000 miles. Modern diesel trucks go over a million miles.

I have a 14 Chevy Cruze diesel with the 2.0. Emissions fell off approx 20k ago in a tragic pothole accident. When emissions were stock it was getting approx 48 highway (best) and now it gets nearly 56 highway (best). Besides it being in a pos Chevy Cruze, the motor itself has been great. Did all the recommended timing belt, water pump, idler pulleys etc at 100k and it’s been flawless since. 👍

I worked for Olds back then and can not remember the amount of short blocks and head gasketsI did. It was a nightmare.

The Navistar 6.0 and 6.4 powerstroke engines didnt do the diesel reputation any favors either

I keep hearing the GM diesel issue at the beginning and made me worry my 6.5 was gonna get called out.

The VW Rabbit had a fantastic diesel in it, it would get 52 miles per gallon and ran much longer than the body and suspension would ever last.

Great video - well done. I grew up during that time era and considered that car (Oldsmobile known for the first modern short stroke high compression overhead valve v8s - Rocket V8) but when I realized it was a gasoline engine converted to a diesel I thought that this would be a reliability nightmare - boy was I right.

I had an Olds Toronado with that diesel and I loved the car. The first engine failed pretty quickly but I had bought it used and they put a new motor in for free and never had problems except with the injection pump. They failed due this rubber damper? I can't remember the name of it right now but I use to pull the pump replace the part and I was good to go for quite a while. I was in the Air Force at the time and newly married and when I was at Red Flag in Vegas my wife went to the movie theatre with a friend and someone stole it. They only drove it a block and abandoned it. They said nope, don't want this POS! lol My Dad owned at least 5 of them Olds and never had issues.

Hey I worked for Olds as a tech in the early 80’s. The first gen not only had head gasket issues also main bearing webbing was a real problem. It is sad because by the end of its production the blocks and heads were greatly improved not perfected but improved. They were fairly reliable. The injection pumps was also a real issue as well as being under powered.

Wish they'd let us have diesel Toyota hilux's. They're awesome little trucks

If I could find another 5.7 diesel I would drive it until the wheels fell off. Had an 82 impala with the v8 diesel while working road construction and going to college in the late 90's. Had 280k when it was retired due to being rear ended. Biggest problem with diesel cars is they are driven like a gas engine. Fire it up and stop at the store and shut down. No warm up or cool down. Thanks for bringing up fond memories.

My parents had one of those. It blew up. I remember as a kid sitting on the side of the road waiting for the tow truck to show up. They had only recently bought it 2nd hand and I think the place they bought it from bought it back. I have always heard that same line as well; that engine destroyed the American diesel market for cars. I believe it.

As I believe I had mentioned on that prior video, my brother had bought a 1980 chev half ton with the 350 diesel at my dads push for him to do so simply because it would get better mileage and diesel was cheaper. He always plugged in the block heater and treated it well but it started to run rough and smoke and had to have the injectors replaced ( he had installed a racor fuel filter assembly on it right off the bat to combat any possible water etc and they filter extremely fine ) , then it was running like shit again after a time and since it was off warranty he decided to sell it ( more like almost give it away ) vs sinking any more money into it. No doubt it needed a fuel pump and injectors and who knows what else was about to go on it. Now I wish I could recall who it was whom my dad had a conversation with down in probably California in the early 80's, it was one of a very few independent automotive engine engineers ( he owned his own specialty engine shop ) that GM consulted with to get input on their idea of building these engines to begin with and after looking at their design proposal he warned them DO NOT BUILD IT as he could see it being a complete and utter disaster, and they ignored his professional input and built it anyway and proved what he told them in the first place that it would fail. Again I can't remember what exactly point by point this engineer had told my dad about the design flaws but they were many and had to do with the block strength and crank and bearing diameters that were never designed to withstand the compression pressures and forces of a diesel combustion engine, starting out with a completely under designed platform. Why GM was so bull headed and went ahead with something they knew was going to be a ticking time bomb, that is a good question as it didn't do them any favours at all. Look at Chrysler, when they started putting the Cummins engine in their trucks which was already a proven engine and soon proved that it was a great platform ( not very powerful though at the beginning ) , that is what sold a pile of Ram pickups as otherwise they were not a great truck. Ford went with International and they too gained a large market by their move.

Dad had an '81 Olds Delta 88 diesel 5.7 ran like a top. Used it on a rural mail route 71 miles 400+ stops a day. Just needed to run good oil and change it often we did 3k miles for a change. Front brakes were today after 3 months. I got really quick on front pass changes. Kept the car for 5 years never opened the engine or trans.

I remember as an early teenager one winter helping a Family Friend who ran a wrecking yard. Move the diesel cars in and out of the heated shop so the diesel cars could thaw out and start. The wreckers pulled in a bunch of them! All gelled up. Best Wishes! M.H