Isuzu, Duratorg, Duramax, Engines?

G/Day Ross,....Lysdexic Keyboard!, ..Just keeping your evil spelling eye in check....So how much input has our Italian friends got with this local" Colouradoo" and its power plant.

Axle.

G'day Axle
Me spellerator saw it straight away and I thought G Axle's draggin' his knuckles on the key board or was it the cat at feed time?

Not sure how good the Jeep/Fiat/GM/Motori engine is.
They seem to be doing a reasonable job and no one has reported things like 3 litre Nissans did as far as I know.
I'm not a fan of Italian engines but it may not be their design.

With the Duramax name, this Colorado engine has nothing in common with it apart from being CRD, so Duramax is just added for buyer recognition in case they can't recognize stuff.
GM are using the customers to develop and test their upper bushes in the front suspension so I hope the same isn't for the engine too, cos they didn't test the suspension here, that's for sure.

Cheers
Ross M

The Ford Ranger 2.5L L4 and 3.2L L5 are not Mazda engines. They are a product of the joint venture between Ford and Peugeot S.A., known as the Ford-Peugeot S.A. DLD engine JV.

The engines are largely Peugeot design and are known as the "Puma" design. Ford call them the Duratorq TDCi engines. The 3.2L engine is merely a 5 cyl version of the 2.5L 4 cylinder engine.

These engines were initially produced in the U.K. but are now all produced at the 100% Ford-owned Struandale engine factory at Port Elizabeth in South Africa. This factory has a capability of 250,000 engines annually.

75,000 of these engines are assembled annually in Sth Africa for local use - the other 175,000 engine "component kits" are exported to Ford factories in Argentina and Thailand, where they are then fully assembled using additional local components.

AS far as I know and popular info suggest the 5 cylinder engine is of VOLVO origin. First I have heard of it being a Pogo power plant.

The popular info is wrong, as always, and is just pub talk. The only time Peugeot and Volvo have ever collaborated on engine design, was for the PRV V6 range of petrol engines from 1971.

The PRV joint venture ended in June 1998, and Peugeot shortly afterwards went into JV with Ford, and they formed the DLD/DV engines JV arrangement, with a shared factory.

Volvo and Peugeot have had no collaboration on engine design for over 20 years, and Volvo has never produced a diesel engine for either Peugeot or Ford.

The smaller Duratorq engines, however, do power some Volvo models - thus probably making some BS artist think they were a Volvo engine - and by adding their own BS pub talk, further advanced the furphy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRV_engine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_DLD_engine

What has actually happened now (since April 2012), is that Ford and Peugeot have now started to drift apart with their engine JV - and they have jointly stated they will no longer co-operate on future, larger diesel designs.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-04-05/classified/sns-rt-us-peugeot-ford-enginesbre8340u9-20120405_1_peugeot-spokesman-gm-alliance-psa-peugeot-citroen

This has come about because GM has taken a 7% shareholding in Peugeot-Citroen to try and reduce costs, and Ford are pretty peeved about this development.

So, it appears that Ford will now start to withdraw from the engine JV with Peugeot to concentrate on designing their own engines - or to find another engine partner.

I don't know how the deal between GM and Peugeot-Citroen will pan out - because GM is still coming out of bankruptcy and Peugeot-Citroen are bleeding so much red ink, they are looking at bankruptcy, if the Froggie Govt doesn't step in with more money soon.

Peugeot-Citroen have already had a bailout of 570M Euros from the French Govt this year - and their sales are still slumping badly, worldwide.
Maybe Ford will soon be seeing a silver lining in their engine JV setup with Peugeot falling apart.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20131023/AUTO0104/310230040

I don't usually trawl the internet for info but the Ford dealer here mentioned the 5 cylinder was an arrangement between Ford and Volvo. Volvo are known for making Penta diesels and have never seen anything about Peugeot and 5 cylinders. Anyone can make anything though.

Ultimately it doesn't matter who makes it as long as the metallurgy is good.
The engines are currently used in Ford, Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo and Mazda and peugeot/citroen.

Ross M you are correct in the 5 cylinder being Volvo....but that was the 2.5 petrol turbo version only, found in the Focus.

Brett....

The 2.2 ford motor is looking like it is going to be the goods for some longevity over the 3.2.
The fleet 3.2s I know of have had 3 oil pumps let go out of 20 odd units. The pump vanes are metal and when they go the turbo inevitably goes at the same time. If the operator shuts it down in time, that's all that goes wrong. If they try to drive it home it means a new motor.
These failures have all happened at 230 000 kms plus, however the hours on the engines doesn't correspond to the kilometres driven as they spend anything up to 20 hours a day sitting and idling inbetween being driven at very high speed, then stopping again. As a measure of how hard they are driven, average tyre wear for an all terrain (pick a brand, they have tried them all) on them is approx. 17 000 k.ms to bald.
I still bought the 3.2 quite confidently.
The 2.2 is ticking over nicely, unfortunately it should be deemed unroadworthy in such a big ute as you could make toast waiting for it to spool up and take off, and it can't propel the utes to the speed they need to do a high speed runway sweep inbetween flights - not a common problem I know, but trying to get through a busy roundabout is pretty scary in one.
If anybody had nuts big enough to bet against the Isuzu 4jji in the current dmax (ex Colorado, ex dmax, ex rodeo, ex Isuzu truck ex ex ex this thing has some pedigree) for longevity, I'd take their bet. It doesn't beat any one engine at anything, but it beats most of them at most things.

The 4jj1 Colorado was the RC model, not the current one, sorry - when I reread it sounded ambiguous.

gbc - Hard acceleration, coupled with regular bouts of high speed, is the ultimate test of any engine. Driving them in that fashion, will find all the weak points in the design.

The durability of the Peugeot designs is pretty reasonable. Remember, Peugeot have a long history of durability, they won numerous Redex trials in the mid-1950's and shocked lots of people when they did.
Virtually no-one had heard of Peugeot before the Redex trials.
I've seen quite a number of Peugeot diesels with very high kms and still performing satisfactorily.

The problems come when the likes of Ford start playing with the design. I'll wager when they built the 5 cyl version of the 4 cyl, they kept the same oil pump - instead of increasing it in size.

Anyone who has had a Ford 7.3L Powerstroke V8 apart, and compared it to the supposedly identical Navistar 7.3L V8 gets a shock when they see the differences.
Navistar are truck builders, just like Isuzu, they don't take shortcuts.

Ford bean counters constantly go through every part in a design to see how they can make it cheaper. In many cases, castings or forgings are replaced by less-durable metal-stampings.
Small steel components are replaced by alloy castings. Bearings are eliminated in the likes of camshafts and the camshaft runs straight in the head metal.
All these things cheapen and weaken a good design, and make it unreliable and with a reduced life.

We used to see this with International Harvester products in the 1960's and 1970's. IH buggered up a lot of their good products by cheap-ar*se, money-saving changes to designs.

If a manufacturer has a good reliable product, they have to learn to leave it alone, because trying to save $5 on a component, will often cost them millions (and their reputation) when it starts to break regularly.

The problem is, as GBC says, one component breaking will nearly always lead to catastrophic destruction of a heap of other components.

Hi Bruce, So is it a fiat design, or just a add on with whatever, on a motor built where ever.??.


Cheers Axle.

The current 2.5L and 2.8L Colorado engines are VM Motori engines, built under licence from VM Motori by GM in their factory in Rayong Thailand.

GM no longer own any shares in VM Motori. Fiat Group (Automobiles) S.p.A., the operating subsidiary of Fiat S.p.A. owns 100% of VM Motori since 28th October 2013.

VM Motori's latest engines have a large amount of input from Fiat's engineering design dept, particularly in the area of fuel injection.

VM Motori engines appear to have a reasonable degree of reliability. However, my experience with Italian items is that the design changes frequently - and in many cases, the parts are a horrendous cost, making them too costly to rebuild.

I'd go for an Isuzu diesel any day, over any other design. I've seen the insides of Isuzu engines, and I know how robust they are.
I've got new Isuzu 6BD1 parts I can't sell. If that's not an indicator of reliability, I dunno what is.

I think it's the Fiat/Iveco comglomeration situtation, but definitely the Isuzu motor is/has performanced very well in all our Isuzu vehicles and the new D.Max has now done 47, 000 Ks in 14 months, mainly towing and has not missed a best.

Hi Ron, Interesting what your stating, have had fiat diesels in earthmoving equipment, and motor alone have been fantastic, but the rest of the item, We won't go there!!....Mate, have had Isuzu engines in various excavators over the last twenty years and not one failure!,up to and over twelve thousand hours,each one...But the funny thing is in 4wds I have heard of numerous problems mainly fuel related issues which I find hard to believe,the motors themselves are know doubt bullet proof internally on everything they build, they have proven that!,......As far as trying to sell those 6bd1 parts ..Forget it!!.. For reliability I would back that engine against anything ever made,....Now why am I asking if these other engines are going to be as good?...LOL.

Cheers Axle.

Axle - You're spot-on there, the old Fiat dozer and tractor donks were first class, no problems there.

It was all those *^&$* fine-thread bolts over the rest of the Fiat machines - and all those manuals in Italian - that would drive you insane! LOL

Cheers, Ron

I wonder what condition a ford ranger will be after 12 or 24 months in a mine environment will they be scrap or useable ?

That is the Duramax engine but the 2.8 is not that engine and is 1/2 sized or less.

For the 2.8 and also the Amarok engines to put out torque and power figures, they have to be using more boost and fuel which causes more internal compression and therefore ability to expand the burning air/fuel to provide the PUSH. No other way to do it. Stroke also has some bearing on torque figures though.
Running light load they will more economical.

Working hard, do they last, is what the OP questioned.

Wamuranman - The Duramax in the Silverado is the 6.6L V8 engine that was designed by Isuzu in conjunction with GM.

We don't see many of them here in Oz, but they're a satisfactory engine by all reports.

GM have just decided to call all their engine range "Duramax" (the word is made up by combining parts of the words "maximum" and "durable") to try and convince buyers they're buying durable engines.

There are steady improvements in metal treatments and materials that are slowly increasing engine durability and life - but whether the bean counters have negated all those benefits, remains to be seen.
Some of the best ideas ever seen in automotive designs were canned by bean counters.

If you've ever seen some of the terrific dozers and front-end loaders produced as prototypes by GM - which were then totally canned by beancounters (after spending tens of millions) - and which designs would have put Caterpillar in the shade - then you have some idea of why companies fail to achieve their full potential, and get a name for "also-rans".

Cheers, Ron.

I have seen a post in here before about the new defender


For 2012, the Defender line-up gets a new Euro 5 emissions-compliant 2.2 litre turbodiesel engine, replacing the current 2.4 litre diesel


With a focus on cleaner running, the new engine's capacity is virtually the only new number, with output unchanged at 90kW and 360Nm of torque.