Petrol trucks are back

Interesting article here about Ford ( remember them) bringing back petrol engines for medium trucks and upping their sales.
www.trucks.com/2016/12/23/ford-work-truck-gas-engine/

Another interesting side issue is Ford bringing one of the manufacturing plants out of Mexico and re-installing in the US, (think it was Michigan).
Seems there was a groundswell beginning about jobs being lost to those "foreigners" down South and it was being reflected in sales figures.
Lots of flag waving, plus just maybe it got to the stage where the pollies were starting to eventually take some notice??
Dave_64

Maybe they were reading the political thinking. Will we see Ford back in Heavy trucks again ? Petrol powered Louies on the Hume.

Interesting how the blurb mention reliability issues with modern diesel, something we'll have to come to grips with as Euro 5, 6 and so on really takes hold.
Another reason the Glider concept has taken off in some US states. (not welcomed in others)

In my experience petrol engines did not work that well in trucks, apart from the fuel consumption they lack the low down torque of a diesel and don't have much engine braking.

I reckon they have the potential to come back.

All I can remember from the 60's are the 760 petrol Dodges which were missiles compared to just about anything else on the road as prime movers. And who could forget the Dodge and Inter V8 paper trucks who made the IPEC overnighters look like they were dawdling.

I don't know how that transfers into today's B-Double situation but the mid size stuff, which the article seems to refer to, might be on a winner?

By sheer coincidence I had the opportunity over the weekend to have a drive in a brand new V8 diesel Landcruiser and then step out into a brand new V8 petrol Nissan Patrol. The difference was very pronounced. If I ever bought a new large wagon the power, smoothness and silence of the Nissan would do it for me and the fuel consumption is supposed to be better than the Landcruiser.

Lang

Lang, you a man after my own heart. I recently did much the same thing, I have a petrol V8 cruiser and was looking at a trade in and wanting to stick with Toyota I went to test drive a new one, guess what, the salesman pretended not to hear that I wasnt interested in diesel(I had a V8 traytop for years as a work ute) and proceeded to preach the goodness of the v8 diesel, I stopped him and asked again about the V8 petrol but again he carried on BSing about the diesel then said I should test drive it as I would be surprised, he was quite surprised when I walked out without saying a word. I went to Nissan drove the Y62 and loved it, now I just have to convince the wife as I have always been a "cruiser" man much like my dad was before me. But the moral to the story is all hail the V8 petrol. And of course I also have a 361 powered 784 Dodge.

i noticed that the last time i was in the USA (2012) the smaller delivery trucks, where going back to petrol, i asked why, too many problems with the newer diesel and cost and fuel economy

Speaking of the US, has anyone seen those Nissan vans with the 5.6 V8?, wish they sold them here.

Are modern diesels having more reliability issues ? Certainly up to Euro 4 I reckon they were fine and maybe if manufacturers had not gone down the EGR route a lot of problems would have been avoided.