By J. Smith
08.11.2009
As far as I know, Rudolf Diesel and Richard Milhous Nixon had little in common, other than being white guys. But had Herr Diesel kept an enemies list like Nixon, at least one from beyond the grave, I’m certain that GM would have been at the top of the list. No single engine did more to sully the good reputation of the diesel engine in North America than the Oldsmobile Diesel. Nor did any single engine do more to kill GM. The Olds division-one of the few nameplates ever to sell more than a million cars in a year in the USA-may even be among the living had it not been for the diesel that bears its name.
Like many GM blunders, the fundamental concept was good. In the early 1970′s GM was not only the largest automaker in the world, it was the largest corporation in the world period. Most shocking to our younger readers, it was also the most profitable. Yes, kids, GM was once a profit machine-it even made money during the Great Depression.
But back to the early 70′s. GM based its vast cash-generating empire on the sales of large automobiles at relatively premium prices. Sure, GM dabbled in compacts and even subcompacts, but the real money was in Impalas, Delta 88s, LeSabres and Caddys. And they were good, solid cars, with chic styling, zippy acceleration and loads of profit-laden options. Most importantly to the bean-counters in the GM building, they made piles of cash.
Then came the OPEC oil embargo of 1973. Gas prices soared and sales of full-size cars plummeted. People shunned large cars like never before and GM worried, with good cause, that fuel prices and shifting consumer tastes would slay the golden goose. And Americans at the time, like those today, were not willing to pay a premium for a small car.
People at GM recognized that they needed to keep people buying their large cars. At the same time, large cars use much gasoline and people were looking for fuel economy. The solution was clear: put diesel engines in the large cars. That way, the public could keep alive its love affair with large cars without paying in appendages at the pump. This strategy would admirably preserve the corporate profit line. Good idea.
Even better idea: make diesels optional at significant additional cost. The plan was diabolically perfect-sort of what we’d now expect from Exxon or Microsoft. There was, of course, the intermediary step of downsizing the land yachts to more reasonable levels of excess-a job both well-conceived and well-executed with the 1977 model year. Next Exit: Diesel Town.
GM settled on a 350 cid V8 for its foray into oil-burner territory. It also decided that it would be an Oldsmobile engine. I’m not exactly sure why Olds was given the project, but GM often let Olds introduce new technologies, as it did with the Hydramatic transmission and front-wheel drive. Contrary to popular myth, however, the engine was not simply converted from Oldsmobile’s Rocket 350. It was a new design, with the same bore and stroke, but it did use many parts from its gas-powered sibling.
One of problems was that it used too many similar parts-more on that later. But initially, when the cars were thrust before the public for the 1978 model year, it seemed like pure genius. Full-size comfort and luxury with economy car gas mileage. Your gargantuan Olds 98, the one with the red leather seats and power everything, now gets almost 30 MPG on the highway. And when the Iranian Revolution caused a second oil shock in early 1979, was downright prescient. Along with the introduction of the X-cars, GM was miles ahead of the competition and appeared-appeared-to be managed by a psychic cabal of super geniuses.
To put it in perspective, in 1978, Olds made a hair over one million cars. Of that number, 33,841 were diesels. And you had to pay $850 to get one in your 88 or $740 in a 98. The base V8 four-door 88 only cost $5,659, so this represented a 15% premium. By 1980, the diesel was even more popular, and available in the best-selling Cutlass and the Toronado. And Olds made 126,885 diesel-powered cars that model year-out of a total of 910,306-each and every one sold at a considerable premium.* And it soon became available company wide-even in Cadillacs.
Performance left much- namely, everything- to be desired. For instance, the 1979 Cadillac Eldo diesel wheezed to 60 MPH in 16.9 seconds and the quarter mile mark passed in a leisurely 20.7 seconds. When the horsepower dropped to 105 with the 1981 model year, it only accelerated the decline (pun intended, sadly). The 1981 Seville Diesel-Cadillac’s top-line prestige vehicle-limped to 60 MPH in an embarrassing 21.0 seconds.
Putting this in perspective the 1980 Chevrolet Caprice Wagon with a gas V8 reached 60 MPH in 13.9 seconds and ran the quarter in 20.0 seconds. Its diesel counterpart needed nearly six more seconds to get up to 60 MPH, getting there in 19.6 seconds and reaching the quarter in 21.7 seconds.** That’s just plain shameful, even by the anemic standards of malaise era iron.
I am too young to remember the particulars of the Olds Diesel. No one in my family owned one. But I recall a sense of optimism surrounding it. I remember my grandparents saying “Olds Diesel” this, and “Olds Diesel” that. They were GM people working in Lansing, which was an Olds town. The paychecks, until 1984 or so, still said Oldsmobile on them. We built the Cutlass, America’s most popular car. GM even built a new plant in 1979 or 1980-Plant Five-on the outskirts of town to make the diesel V6. The nation was mired in recession, but here was a new plant in Lansing. It was new and exciting. And it would, once again, show the world what GM’s Mark of Excellence meant.
Sure, performance was bad-real bad-but economy was great and the diesel allowed Americans to keep their land yachts. And it allowed GM to reap a handsome profit-and we’re talking a Johhny Depp or Brad Pitt Profit, not some measly Tom Hanks or Ewan McGregor money. It seemed too good to be true.
And so it was.
As previously mentioned, The Olds Diesel used too many parts from the Rocket 350. As the discriminating autophile knows, Rudolf’s cast-iron kinder achieve ignition via compression rather than spark. The corollary is that the high compressions needed to achieve combustion create much higher pressure and stress in a diesel than in a similarly situated gas engine. This means that the head stud pattern and bolt strength needs to be much more heavy duty. Instead of a heavy-duty stud pattern with extra-strength bolts, GM used the same ones as on the gas 350. Remember this.
In addition, diesels rely on a precise dollop of diesel fuel to be injected at precisely the correct moment. And the fuel delivery system has to be precisely calibrated in order to do this. Many of the parts of this complex system are made of steel. Needless to say, steel has a tendency to rust when exposed to water. In addition, water in the combustion chamber is bad-real bad-for diesels. It leads to stuff like the bent connecting rod pictured here. For that reason, an indispensable part of the diesel engines is a water separator in the fuels system. GM, however, dispensed with the indispensable. Remember this too.
Finally, the diesel presented Mr. Goodwrenches at each of GM’s thousands of dealerships with issues they’d never before faced. And neither GM nor dealerships apparently ponied up for diesel training. So they serviced and repaired the Olds Diesel like they would a gas engine. Remember.
These flaws, like Medea’s rage or Oedipus’ quest for truth, inevitably led to a tragic conclusion. The head bolts and studs could not cope with the pressure of the diesel’s compression. This led to head gasket failures. This, in turn, allowed coolant into the combustion chamber. While there, it joined water from the fuel system. Water doesn’t compress-witness the wonders of hydraulics. Thus, the water, plus the weak head bolts, plus the failed gaskets meant the dreaded hyrdralock, which treated your engine’s precious bodily internals like Sherman treated Atlanta. Not good.
So, off the engine goes to Mr. Goodwrench. Who repairs it just like he would a gas engine. And reuses the head studs and bolts, just like on a gas engine. Thus, the main cause of the problem continued unabated. Adding to the carnage, the head bolts and studs were already weakened by the initial failure. So they would fail again. Only sooner and forever.
That $800 or so you plunked down, or more likely borrowed at 18% interest at the time – you know, that cash that seemed like a good investment after the Shah’s ignominious exit-remember that? Your “investment” just laid an egg. A very brown, malodorous one.
So your newly rebuilt engine, only a year or two old, is a pile of scrap iron. Whatever money you saved in fuel economy you probably lost in wrecker bills, rental car fees and lost work time. If nothing else, GM paid for the repairs and replacement. In fact, problems were so legion that GM dealers had a code specifically for diesel warranty repairs-they were AFA: Automatic Factory Acceptance. But GM couldn’t help with your resale value, which was burrowing deeper and deeper into the earth, like the super-heated core of a nuclear reactor.
But there’s more. The water in the fuel system corroded the delicate internal parts, which ruined the system, leading to exceedingly poor performance. And when the Old Diesel peaked at a walloping 125 HP***-in a nearly 4,000 pound car no less-you can’t afford anything other than peak performance. But the internal parts merrily oxidized away, and the precision delivery of fuel fell further and further out of synch with the needs of the engine.
Still more! People with water in the fuel line have, since time immemorial, used dry gas, which is basically a water-absorbing alcohol. So they used the same stuff in their Olds Diesels. But the alcohol destroyed a fuel injector governor ring. This further damaged the engine’s timing.
But it’s not finished yet! The leaking head gaskets also led to loss of lubrication over bearing surfaces, with predictably negative outcomes.
Now comes the cherry on top: the Olds Diesel was unrefined, leaving a cacophony of clatter and rattle in its wake. It emitted a foul, tractor-trailer-like smell. So, when you weren’t renting a car while Mr. Goodwrench further maimed your engine, you got to drive a loud, stinky and laboriously slow car. Mark of Excellence? Not so much.
There were probably even more problems with the engines, but you get the point. Eventually, most of them were solved-anemic performance being a notable exception-but demand declined and the engines retired after 1985. But like other GM disasters-Vega, X-cars, Fiero-it was too late. The damage was done. Reputation is hard to overcome. Let’s face it, you’re not probably going to visit the doctor who mistakenly removed your mom’s right leg, no matter how much he tells you he’s improved. Hell, it tanked diesel sales for a generation.
The Olds Diesel not only tarnished GM’s reputation for building big cars-a market they dominated-but it also dealt another stunning blow to its reputation for engineering and production prowess. Buyers simply could not trust that GM’s cars were well-engineered or well-built. Another disaster that left millions unlikely to every buy another GM car. Another legacy burden GM must overcome if it is to succeed.
*Sales numbers from Standard Catalog of Oldsmobile 1987-1997, Chevedden and Kowalke.
**All performance numbers found at http://www.exoticcarsite.com/0-60-quarter-mile-times.htm. And no, your grandmother’s 1982 diesel Caddy does not now qualify as “exotic.”
***Later versions were downgraded to a spine-tingling 105 HP, offering embarrassing levels of “performance” that could easily be exceeded by a geriatric mall walker recovering from hip replacement.
Post-Script: Like any car, the Olds Diesel has its fans. I like old cars too, and I’m sure I could have a hoot with Lansing’s finest oil burner. That doesn’t mean it was a reliable power plant at the time, which is ultimately what counts. Just ask British Leyland about the next generation Allegro.
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Too.Many.Things.To.Say.
Must regroup and decide how much I want to insult GM before I comment. There are just so many choices.
And, you know, it was a long time ago. Almost everyone involved with this huge, tragic mistake has been gone for a long time.
Maybe it’s just piling on at this point, sort of like re-hashing your buddy not noticing that he had lipstick on his undershirt before he went home to his wife, who is now his ex-wife. You know, you can explain some lipstick on your shirt, but it’s really tough to explain lipstick underneath your shirt.
Everything that GM did wrong seems so obvious now, but they thought they had everything planned out. Just ike your friend thought, and he was so wrong.
The desciption you have of the service work is very revealing and explains a lot. I never understood why the rebuilt engines failed at such a high rate.
I don’t know if they could have sourced a real diesel engine from someone like Cummins back then, but it’s obvious now they should have. I remember the Lincoln had a BMW 524td engine in it for a short time and maybe GM should have gone that way with their diesels.
If any other automaker had made this mistake, it would have killed them. Especially in the depressed market of the early 1980s. For too long, GM’s size insulated it from poor decisions.
Having said that, I love the shot of the rear of the Delta 88, vestigial tailfin and all.
My father owned a Delta 88 diesel. Numerous failures. I can’t remember them in detail except one. The heater failed on a trip to Florida (from Illinois in winter time) and it was a hazard to drive with no defroster or heat because of visibility problems. The car sounded like a Greyhound bus.
Didn’t GM have some diesel engineering experience from their truck divisions? Probably the answer was that the cost accountants ran amok and prevented many necessary refinements for reliable operation.
The photo is courtesy of someone’s Flickr account.
One of my dad’s employees back in the 80s had a late 70s/early 80s Delta 88 coupe with a diesel. Eventually, he converted it to a gasoline engine; that conversion was fairly common back in those days.
This tale is a perfect example of how good ideas turn into bad ones with poor execution.
A friend of mine in high school had a K5 Blazer with the 350 based Diesel in it. (The Blazer used the Olds engine for 2 years before they switched to the 6.2 Detroit Diesel)
It was as they say, “not good”.
I’ve heard that the 6.2 liter unit was a strong engine. GM learned its lesson–let the experts design the diesels.
It was one of the worst engines ever put into mass production, period. It’s amazingly bad, not just bad.
There were quite a few ‘good’ diesel engines back in those days (some Toyota and Izuzu engines come to mind) but they were, by modern standards, heavy, clunky, rattly, unrefined and asthmatic. Which is why they were quite common in trucks and 4x4s…..but in a car? Even a land yacht like the Olds…even I wouldn’t have put up with that.
But quite a few did…..I remember the diesel engine that M-B fitted to their 200D for instance…very common in rural and regional Oz.
But the special memory is the Holden Gemini diesel. The Gemini was a car about the size of the current Toyota Matrix and some genius had it assembled with a four cylinder diesel that wouldn’t have been out of place as a stationary engine in a shearing shed. This huge lump of Izuzu (?) steel sat over the front axle like a boulder and wheezed out bugger all horsepower in a relentlessly diesel kind of way…..it was a sad car, a mad car…..and such a fun car.
And I still drive a diesel today….fortunately a modern (ish) Euro one…
I guess we should be happy Toyota tackled the first production gas electric hybrid and not GM. But what about the Volt? Hmmm.
This GM diesel debacle is what has soured so many Americans on diesel powerplants to this day. Slow, noisy, and smoky is the perception that lingers with most of the public- which is sad, as in Europe GM (and most other automakers) offer, incredibly efficient, refined diesel motors.
GM must have been makings TONS of money, because this would have put any other company under from the warranty claims alone.
Comment by Kevin Miller on Wednesday August 12, 2009 @ 00:35
which is sad, as in Europe GM (and most other automakers) offer, incredibly efficient, refined diesel motors.
GM’s European diesel engines are not GM designed. The 1.3, 1.9 and 2.0 diesels are FIAT designed and made, the 1.7 is a ISUZU diesel, the one in the Antara is by Daewoo (and NOT good), the commercial van diesels are Renault ones…
The Omega had a BMW 2.5L I6 diesel in it’s last few years.
Seano: There was a similar car in the States–the Chevette Diesel, which cranked out all of 50 or so horses. Accelleration was measured in Baktun Cycles. I;ve seen numbers of around 21 seconds or so. MPG, not surprisingly, was astronomic–41 city, 55 highway (although in older, inflated EPA numbers).
If I’m remembering correctly, the VW Golf diesel of 1984 had a 51 hp rating. And a four-speed manual transmission.
I’d love to see a modern diesel offered in a car like the Malibu, but I think that would be a big step for GM and GM’s customers.
The dreaded diesel issue for GM.
The hubris and the horror would be a good title for this post.
I have a 1981 olds 98 with the 350 diesel. The engine has been wonderful. One thing that must be done is you have let the engine warm up first before you drive away.
What happens when you just start it up drive away without letting warm up is the upper part of the combustion chamber heats up too fast and makes the block deck and the cylinder head deck expand faster than the head bolts.
This squashes the head gasket and stretches the head bolts over time and eventually the head gaskets fail.
So remember let diesels warm up also dont let them overheat and your diesel will live a long life.
Some rambling thought on the subject from a 65 yr old…
I’m a retired computer service manager who grew up in the ’60s, setting drag strip records with 442s & GTOs. I’ve owned everything from a ’63 Jetfire & a ’66 turbo Corsa (Corvair) 180 h.p., to a Cadi Allanti, ’90 Reatta, etc. Even owned a Datson diesel & an Audi 4000 diesel (VW engine) & a S10 diesel. One of my favorites was my 1982 Cadi Seville diesel… what a car… 4 wheel independant suspension, 4 wheel disc brakes, all leather & a classic look never mistaken for anything else, and 30 mpg to boot! We still regularly use our ’96 Chevy 4×4 pickup with the turbo 6.5… about to turn 190,000 miles without any engine or tranny repairs. You name it, I’ve probably driven it.
I started a consignment lot in suburban Minneapolis & got a dealer’s license in 1990. I developed a Canadian contact that I ended up wholesaling about 75 – 80 GM 5.7 ( & a few 4.3s) diesel cars to – Buicks, Olds, Pontiacs, Chevys & Cadillacs… even a few Chev/GMC pickups before they went to the 6.2s. He would replace the head gaskets with the upgraded version, doing the head bolts at the same time, and retail them. He sold them as fast as I could find them.
I owned and drove at least 10 or 12 of them over those years. Once the head gaskets were upgraded (w/ new bolts too), they ran great. While they were hardly “drag racers”, they were adequite IF their timing was adjusted occasionally. The Cutlasses, Centurys, Malibus & Impalas were actually pretty “peppy”, probably due to their lighter weight. A good running one would actually squeal their tires off the line – no joke!
Bottom line – GM made numerous mistakes with this product, especially the head/head gasket “problems”. I feel strongly most of GMs problem was the fact they did not have mechanics at their dealerships that had any idea what a diesel was, and really didn’t want to know. The public also didn’t have a clue on how to treat a diesel. Within a year of new, GM diesels had their glow plug circuitry bypassed, half of their glow plugs burnt out, semi plugged fuel filters & injector pumps so far out of timing the car was a smoking mess that couldn’t get out of it’s own way! As someone said, some poor consumer took his beautiful Toronado or Cadi into his GM dealer, got his head gaskets replaced, got hit with a $1000 bill, only to have the damn thing fail 2 months later because the dealer didn’t have a clue about the head bolts! Soon the owner had enough and got rid of a really nice car that no body knew how to service. Too bad, woulda, shoulda, coulda, but GM didn’t initially understand the problems & then couldn’t respond fast enough to save the engine.
Now we’ll get the “Volt”, a Vega type puddle jumper, instead of a better made GM “Jetta TDI type” commuter that would sell like hot cakes. Build a TDI car without the numerous VW quality problems & then you’ve got something! (Wife’s Jetta TDI gets 43 mpg in town & highway combined). But don’t hold your breath for “Obama-motors” to figure it out – they won’t.
Now where did I put the keys to the ’65 442?
Regards -
Incidently, Jeeps initial entry with their German diesel in the early ’80s wasn’t much either, not very fast & not very refined. Lincoln’s diesel was rare, and if you ever drove one, you knew why. The Volvo diesels were bulletproof, but were real dogs – so slow as to be unsafe. The early Mercedes were much the same. Mazda & Toyota flopped too.
The Isuzu engine in the Chevy S10s & Luvs (& Isuzus) was the only sweatheart of the bunch.
If you look deeper into the corporate hierarchy at GM, you will find the true flaw in the 5.7L diesel and it’s downfall. Oldsmobile Division began development of the diesel engine in 1975. Back in those days, the divisions acted autonomously and even actively competed with each other. Oldsmobile engineers had running mules by ’76, and the prognosis was good; excellent fuel mileage, and adequate performance. However, they had durability issues. Now here comes the problem. GM’s top brass found out about the diesel prototypes, and demanded it be released immediately across all model lines (even Cadillac). Despite the Oldsmobile engineers’ objection due to the project’s incomplete state, the sales department won out over the engineering department, and the engine went into production. Meanwhile, development of the V6 continued. The V8 diesels began spilling their guts out on the highway all over the place, while the V6 reached it’s durability and reliability targets. Note that the V6 diesel did not have the durability issues that the V8 diesels did, due to their being fully developed before being sold. Later versions of the V8 were decent, but the damage had already been done. The diesel V6 suffered at the hands of the V8s reputation also. The V6, based on the 350 V8 design, was extensively modified, especially with 6 headbolts per cylinder versus 4 as on the V8. In fact, the V6 had 14 bolts holding each head down, versus the V8 with only 12 bolts. The proof that the 350 diesel could have been a reliable engine is in the fact that the V6 was, and the later versions were decent, and the Goodwrench ones (with help from Caterpillar) were even better still. A 350 diesel with ARP head bolts, Victor Reinz head gaskets, and a decent water separator will last a very long time. My ride all through high school and college was a 1981 350 diesel powered 98 Regency. It was my grandfather’s car, and it’s original engine blew up at 13,000 miles. The replacement Goodwrench engine had 150,000 miles on it when I got my license at 16, and had 260,000 miles on it when a drunk in a Dodge Ram hit me at a red light at 50 MPH (in a 35 MPH Zone) and caved in the whole back end of the car. I might still be driving it otherwise. The pitiful THM-200C transmission on the other hand was a real disaster. The only way to fix that was to replace it with a THM-350 (which I finally did after it blew up on me my senior year of high school). I loved that car. 30 MPG and it was a comfy highway cruiser and a tank.
I agree GM made major mistakes here. By the first redesign in 81 to the DX block GM knew about the head bolts and did nothing, GM knew about the water in the fuel problem and did nothing and use of alcohol as a fuel dryer and did nothing. Eventually GM did fix the alcohol problem but too late to make any difference. To GM’s credit the 5.7l made as good or better performance as the MB, Toyota, VW, or most manufacturers of the day and with the 4sp auto introduced in 82 the 5.7l’s performance was very acceptable. Also to GM’s credit, they achieved the goal of making a diesel that required no more attention from the driver than fill it with fuel, change the oil and turn the key. Turn kew wasn’t the case with other manufactures in the late 70′s. I owned an 81 Toronado which I purchased used with about 60K miles and drove it to 180K with the only major problem being glow plug system failure. I replaced it with a button. The Toronado gave me 25-26mpg all around commuting 100mi (total)/day for about 6 years. I then purchased an 84 Eldo with the 4sp auto., what a difference in performance. The Toro would downshift into 2nd on the 6-7% grades around Denver (5000+ft above sea level) and make 50mph, the Eldo will downshift into 3rd and make 70+ on the same hills. I still have the Eldo, It’s tired at 340K, but with a water separator I have had no real problems. I plan to rebuild the Eldo and upgrade the head and main bolts to ARP studs. Maybe get another 300K? It’s a shame that GM didn’t take a little action up front with water separators and either larger 9/16″ bolts or higher quality bolts. They could have been leaders in the auto diesel field offering much needed hard industry employment rather than goats of the diesel movement. I sincerely hope for our sakes that they survive and grow so more of us and our offspring may enjoy the excellent earning potential that GM as offered in the past.