Diesel Titan on the way

[n2916s]

All I have to do is get another 25000 miles or so out of my current Titan and I can buy one with a Cummins diesel:

2015 Nissan Titan to Gain Cummins Diesel V8 | AutoGuide.com News

Love my current Nissan but just ticked over 158000 so a new TV is on the horizon anyway...

Mike

[streamintrip]

We tow with a 2010 Armada SE with Firestone air bags and we keep the trailer at about 8,500# to stay well under the 15,100 GCWR. The Airstream GVWR is 10,000 so we have a lot of payload which we cannot use at this time. The Cummins in the Titan is now a real option, depending on the towing specs. While the Armada and Titan are very similar, we would love a Cummins Armada, but that will never happen.

We await more details on the Cummins Titan and look forward to a test drive when it comes on the market. One surprising stat I read is that only about 22,000 Titans are sold each year compared to 100,000+ Tundras!

[Hansom-Man]

Yeah, we'll see what the towing specs are. I'm not quite as hopeful as my DW is about the diesel Titan. While our Titan is a decent truck from a mechanical perspective, it seems to be a bit under-designed from a structural perspective.

I've noticed a lot of bed creaks and other minor things that seem like the Titan's frame is close to its engineering limit. Not sure the scale of refresh the Titan needs to compete in the higher margin, but fiercely competitive truck market is within Nissan's financialy strapped grasp.

Here's to hoping though.

[streamintrip]

Good point. In reading a preliminary evaluation on-line, the writer stated that the Titan was getting a complete redo. According to the writer, the frame was going to be upgraded to the heavier 'transit van' one. I am not sure what the real model name is, but I have seen them on the road. According to the article this new frame is heavier than that of the Titan and close to a true 3/4 ton. If that is the case, the Titan could be much better than what you have experienced. I just have no experience with it so I am taking your comments into consideration. For us, this Armada combo is really good. Plenty of enclosed room and a very nice ride loaded or unloaded.

[Hansom-Man]

Good to know. The article I had read was much lighter on details.

Don't get me wrong. We're generally pleased with the Titan and Nissan in general. We've only had one 3 yr period in our adult lives where we've not had a Nissan/Datsun in the family.

It will be nice to have another viable option in the mid-duty range that's not from Detroit. We liked the Tundra, but could not justfy the $8500 premium over the Titan. Still not a decision we regret. Now if I could get a Toyota diesel Hi-lux that would be a different tune entirely.

[masseyfarm]

From what I have read about this Cummins V8, it was originally worked on with Chrysler, but I understand Chrysler has backed out of the project some time ago.

Will be interesting how it goes, as Cummins say it will do the job of the Ford V10.

Cummins Engines



Dave

[m.hony]

Yeah, but- what will the sheet metal look like? That truck is severely overdue for a re-design!

[switz]

Wonder if that new small Cummins V8 will weigh more than their 6.7L straight 6 used on the Dodge for over 20 years? I wonder if the torque and horsepower numbers of the V8 will be the same, less than or greater than the numbers of the Cummins straight 6?

I wonder whose transmission will be coupled with the V8?

800 to 850 ft pounds of torque in the current Big 3 diesel pickup wars exceeds the capabilities of any current automobile/suv transmission.

Since this will be an entirely new drive train, I personally would await at least one years build cycle to see where the problem areas show up from real world use and what Nissan will do to resolve those issues.

YMMV

[SeeMore]

Interesting, Fred Diaz, Nissan Sales & Marketing, recently said buyers should expect over 300 horsepower and torque in the mid-500s for the Cummins 5.0 block. Cummins was working on this engine with Chrysler initially for the Ram 1500. Chrysler's near bankruptcy under Bob Nardelli a few years ago severed Chrysler's involvement in development. Cummins is free of contractual restrictions so the engine may be sold to whomever worldwide and Nissan is just the first taker. A manufacturing line and location has not yet been announced.

FYI: Fiat/Chrysler's subsequent 50% owner purchase of General Motors' VM Motori, sourced small block (3 liter) diesels expeditiously for Dodge's Grand Cherokee evolution. VM made this engine almost exclusively for London taxis and built less than 10,000 a year before the Chrysler contract calling for 60,000 annually. Ram will be leveraging this supplier for their 1500's smaller diesels.

Although the Titan build number for 2012 was 31,000+ with sales just over 22,000, the 2013 build number hovers around 9,000 for nine months. The downward spiral may mean the new Titan will abandon the 1/2 ton size and introduce a new class short of a true 3/4 ton size. No where in any literature nor marketing hype has Nissan said anything about target class size or called it a 1/2 ton; merely the 'next generation.'

A slight up-sizing would be consistent with discussions of a new heavier chassis and the debate over transmission choice (many insiders think it may be the ZF eight-speed). Waiting a model year for all these improvements and modifications to be refined seems warranted.

[Wazbro]

The Nissan 3500 NV Passenger would be another good candidate for this engine to use as a TV.

[m.hony]

A Nissan passenger van with a diesel would be an awesome tow vehicle.

[DKB_SATX]

Originally Posted by SeeMore

~~
FYI: Fiat/Chrysler's subsequent 50% owner purchase of General Motors' VM Motori, sourced small block (3 liter) diesels expeditiously for Dodge's Grand Cherokee evolution. VM made this engine almost exclusively for London taxis and built less than 10,000 a year before the Chrysler contract calling for 60,000 annually. Ram will be leveraging this supplier for their 1500's smaller diesels.
~~

VM Motori was jointly owned by Fiat and GM, but I think Fiat has now purchased GM's stake (or will soon close the deal). That joint ownership may be what you mean to indicate with the "50% owner purchase" part but it's not clear. The original 50% stake was purchased from Penske, not from GM.

The late model London Taxi does in fact use a VM Motori engine, but it's an inline 4, not the 3-litre V6 used in the Grand Cherokee and RAM 1500.

[SeeMore]

Correct on all accounts. Penske was the previous owner of the shares purchased.

Auto spell check changed my misspelled 'their' to 'this' and made an already poorly worded reference to the four cylinder more misleading - apologies.

The real message is VM Motori was a very small specialty manufacturer with a single product and mature workforce that is scaling up explosively (6x) for their second engine design. Add a third engine design and more manufacturing plant for the RAM 1500 within a few months to an already stressed management and development team, and the potential for 'issues' grows exponentially.

Beware of new hire training and quality control issues along the way!

[DKB_SATX]

VM Motori has been producing different-sized automotive 4-cylinders (including the 2.5l that's in the taxis) for Europe and Asia for decades, as well as licensing its designs. They've been producing a smaller V6 for a while, and the 3-litre is a couple of years old now, it's just new to the US and has the potential to have software issues and such that are specific to the US market (as any new-to-market engine does.)

Ramping up production for the Grand Cherokee and RAM may indeed cause them problems, I have no idea what sort of excess capacity they may or may not have.

And I've taken us WAY off the Diesel Titan topic (with its new Cummins V8 that has most of the same possibility of new-engine issues.) The output mentioned for the Cummins is beastly for a half-ton chassis, hopefully they'll make it a "tweener" like the Tundra and build it for fairly serious payload without quite going all the way to the heavy-duty zone.

[switz]

A friend at dinner last night, whose company supplies production materials to Cummins in Indiana, said he has seen the initial prototype V8s that are coming down the production line. So the engine has moved from vaporware to hardware status.

[slowmover]

One of the traditional attractions of a diesel was its' longevity. But the latest GM and FORD fullsize are expected to last but 215-225k miles (Cummins at 385k). It's very difficult to make any measure of "economy" work for such expensive engines versus advanced gassers, now.

I rather doubt that the 1/2T diesels will be any better in this regard.

There may be a subset of TT owners who need (rather than want) a pickup for 4-5 years for which this will work.