Has anyone heard anything about Ford buying stock in Cummins? If so, what are their intentions?

 

that rumor has been out a while. I did hear that in 2007 dodge was going to replace the cummins with a mersedes motor

 

I thought I heard ford bought cummins.

 

Ford used to own a significant amount of Cummins stock, but not anymore.

 

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

cummins is gonna be in rough water come 2007. Thats the last year for the dodge cummins contract to build engines. If Mercedes starts to build the engines for dodge then Cummins has no where to go. Plus 2007 all the new EPA requirements for diesels comes out. If cummins can meet these requirements and mercedes cant then Cummins is set for a little while. Its only a little over 2 years away so lets see what happens.

Lets just see if those loyal dodge fans are also loyal to the type of engine thats under the hood.

 

In all likelyhood there will be the crowd that wants to keep the older trucks alive and shun the newer ones, just like the Ford 7.3 club does now. I personally think that Mercedes is a world leader in diesel engines and would welcome it's installation. They've been in the diesel engine business since before I was born and I have a lot of gray hair in my beard. There's a lot of old 240D's still running around. And check out the Dodge Sprinter. They are equipped with a MB 5 cylinder turbo-diesel. One of my customers bought one last year for his insulated window business as a work van and he let me drive it. I could barely hear the engine as it pushed me quite firmly into the seat back on acceloration. I was impressed to say the least. Yes Cummins is in trouble, but if they had any wisdom they wouldn't have bet the farm on a contract with Dodge. They still have the big rig and marine engine division. And others that I don't know about I am sure.

 

Mercedes does make a engine that will fit into the Dodge trucks its much more of a truck engine over the Cummins its not a throwaway engine thats forsure. The problem with the Mercedes is the Dodge truck chassis's can't handle it the torque and weight from the the Mercedes would tear a Dodge apart. The Mercedes that they could use in a Dodge is a 388cid I-6 diesel it puts out 260hp and 700ftlbs at 1200-1600 rpm and weighs in at 1235lbs

Dodge can't even build a transmission that can handle a 5.9 Cummins so I doubt their engineers are smart enough to build one for a bigger engine.

With the new emmission rules and regs for light truck diesels is going to push diesel engines right out of the market. The engines will be so complicated to work on they won't be worth owning.

 

Mercedes would have to engineer something smaller. For them that would be a simple task.
Transmissions: Ford didn't do any better IMO. E4OD and it's successor is not known for it's power handling abilities. Even with a stock engine. As far as the stick shift, it's a ZF, not a Ford product.
I fully agree with you on the complexity issue, but if EPA pushes too hard, well rules can be changed by a public vote very easily. In Europe diesels are used much more widely than they are here due to thier efficiency. People who don't work on cars and truck for a living will buy them without realizing the reality of having to fix them until they have to pay the exorbitant labor rates that will go along with them. For example just to change the oil on a lot of cars these day you have to remove a belly pan from under the engine just to get at the oil filter and change it out. Effectively doubling the labor time just for an oil change. And I think that just about all the advances made in the diesel engine design are going to be in tighter controls on cylinder swirl, injector precision, software control, stuff that's already in place. To the outside observer, there won't be much additional stuff that isn't already there now. EGR, intercooler, turbocharger, catalytic converter, that's all there now.
FWIW I hope that the EPA doesn't swagger too much and regulate the diesel engine right out of the US as that would leave us that much more dependant on OPEC for our fuel needs. We can't run a gas engine on biodeisel!!!

 

Wow, thanks for all the information. I hope the future of light truck diesels are not doomed!