IT’S A SHAME THIS FORD F-150 ARRIVED AFTER DIESELGATE
Punchy pickup shows diesel can still deliver even as the technology falls out of favour
“Damn it, Bhu, you were supposed to bring me a diesel.” You know, all clickety-clack high-pressure injection on startup, a bit of a ruckus from the engine bay once the idle settled down and a coarseness — this was, after all, a Ford F-150 pickup — to the throttle belying its compression ignition.
But, nooo, there were no telltale signs of diesels, the darn engine sitting there, purring like a bloody Lexus V-8. Not a hint of vibration in the cabin, not the slightest indication that I was driving sans spark plugs.
I wasn’t angry, but my little trip to Ottawa to pick up my dad’s furniture suddenly got very expensive. The F-150, a Platinum double cab no less, was a gargantuan affair and I was going to be hauling a load of old furniture. “Hell,” I thought to myself, “if this was one of those 3.5-litre EcoBoosts, this is either going to get very expensive or slow (the only way to get decent gas mileage from a turbocharged engine is to keep it off the boost and cruise around 90 km/h). And Bhu (the world’s best car wrangler) is usually so damned reliable.”
And then I looked at the tachometer and there it was — the redline prominently marked at 4,600 r.p.m. So, unless we were back in the days of Ford’s flatheads, this was a diesel. Bhu hadn’t made a mistake. Instead, somewhere along the line Ford had learned how to make a diesel, well, sophisticated.
In fact, the F-150’s new 3.0L Power Stroke V-6 felt more sophisticated than similar TDI engines that power various German luxury sedans. Oh, they’re buttery smooth and responsive as all get out, but even an Audi A8 oil burner gives off just the slightest of clickety-clacks right after it lights off, the tiniest reminder of the extraordinary fuel economy that is to come.
Not the F-150. Once I determined that it was, after all, a diesel — sorry for doubting you, Bhu — I listened more intently every time I started it and, well, either I’m finally starting to go deaf or Ford has applied some serious magic to its combustion stroke. Nothing. Nada. Nyet on the high-compression boom. Now, this wasn’t always so. I can vividly remember the first Power Stroke-powered Ford I drove, a giant 7.3-L affair that, upon startup, caused all my neighbours to rush to their front windows to check who was being attacked by the anti-aircraft gun. Accompanied by a big plume of blue smoke, that F-150 was not nearly as popular with the condo committee. And yet, for all its civility, this smallest of Power Stroke engines also delivered the goods. At 130 km/h — yes, dad’s prized armoire was tied down tightly — the gas gauge read 10.2 L/100 km. At a buck-twenty, it was around nine. And, for the brief stint I ran 100 km/h, it rang in at an incredible 7.2. That’s the kind of frugality that made my dad’s accountant literally green with envy. Coupled with 440 pound-feet of torque and 250 horsepower, this might be the perfect truck powertrain. What makes this sad — at least to fans of oil burners — is that diesel’s day is done; Europe’s Dieselgate scandal put an end to the inroads that TDIs were just starting to make into the North America psyche. Loyal VeeDub owners may be hanging onto their TDI Jettas, but the proliferation of “clean diesels” as an alternative to hybrids is dead. Dieselgate was the awakening of the EV revolution. Certainly, Tesla’s Elon Musk jumped on the opportunity to castigate traditional automakers for their wayward emissions. And the pace of pro-electric vehicle, anti internalcombustion legislation around the world spiked after regulators figured out they’d been thoroughly rooked by automakers. What makes this whole affair all the more soap opera-like is that the very same companies that have propagated this NOx-spewing scandal are now the most vociferous advocates of converting their fleets to emissions-free electric motivation. One German automaker or another is going to outdo the other in its rapidity to convert to battery power.
The problem with this is that the verbiage they’re using to promote their new-found EV religion — good for the environment, reduced overall emissions, etc. — is the very same they used some 20 years ago when they were pushing diesel to meet the Kyoto Protocols.
The cry for subsidies, the alarmism, the almost religious fervour with which its adherents couch their arguments, it’s nearly all the same. I know we’ve been lying to you for 20 years (and, judging by the recent announcement of an investigation into Mercedes-Benz diesels, haven’t really stopped) goes the new mantra, but now we’re telling the truth. Meanwhile, Ford is putting out the best diesel I’ve ever tested. And you can be damned sure it meets emissions regulations. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.