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Cummins V8 diesel for Patrol?
Nissan product chief hints at long-awaited Patrol diesel – via the next Titan ute's new Cummins TDV8Nissan has made its first positive statement about the potential for diesel power in its new-generation Patrol, and its solution could be worth the wait.
Launched exclusively with a 5.6-litre petrol V8 in February last year, the fancy new $82,000-plus Y62 Patrol wagon sells alongside the recently upgraded (but still $30,000 cheaper) Y61/GU Patrol wagon and ute.
Unsurprisingly, Nissan Australia has fallen well short of former managing director Bill Peffer's claims that it would sell hundreds of new Patrols a month and that it could even match the success of Toyota's 200 Series LandCruiser without a diesel engine.
Despite an extensive marketing campaign espousing the petrol V8's whole-of-life running costs and the dismissal of suggestions that sales of the 15-year-old Y61 would not continue to erode, Patrol wagon sales declined more than 26 per cent last year and almost 45 per cent so far this year.
Including the GU (Y61), Nissan sold 2362 Patrol wagons in 2013 (for an average of 197 a month), while Toyota found 9311 homes for LandCruiser wagons, or more than 775 a month.
Patrol sales have slowed even more dramatically this year, with just 491 registered to March, equating to less than 164 per month.
Meantime, the 200 Series kept on trucking with 2222 sales – more than 740 a month – and Toyota's share of the mainstream upper-large SUV segment has never been greater at 82 per cent.
It's well documented that diesels account for 95 per cent of all LandCruiser wagon sales and the 200 Series is the Y62 Patrol's only direct rival in this two-horse race.
It's also no secret that Australia is the only significant market for right-hand drive diesel SUVs, making it difficult for any car-maker to justify the investment required to develop a diesel version of a vehicle that sells in significantly greater numbers in predominantly petrol-powered left-hand drive markets like the US, Middle East and Russia.
It's not that Nissan hasn't tried, but so far no reports of deals to share diesel engines – including expensive high-tech European V6s from Daimler and Nissan's industrial ally Renault, whose 3.0-litre oil-burner sees duty in the Navara ute – have borne any fruit.
That could change, however, according to Nissan's worldwide product planning boss Andy Palmer.
Despite ruling out the possibility of the Patrol being fitted with the same new Cummins 5.0-litre V8 turbo-diesel when it was announced for the next full-size Titan pick-up last August, Palmer suggested just that at last week's New York motor show.
Asked by motoring.com.au if there was anything to report on Nissan's quest for a diesel Patrol, Palmer said: "We continue to study... The trouble with that is basically economies of scale – right-hand drive and diesel... there's not too many markets.
"However, what I can hint at is that with the next-generation Titan we're bringing diesel engines to the US.
"When you start to do that you start to get those economies of scale. And you can start to imagine that when you get those economies of scale it makes it easier to put a diesel engine in the Patrol and a few other vehicles."
If we've extrapolated correctly, Palmer indicated that production of the first diesel engine for Nissan's volume-selling US truck, the Titan, could make the same earth-moving oil-burner viable for the Japanese-built Patrol.
When that might happen is anyone's guess, but North America's next-generation Titan pick-up is not expected to break cover until next January's Detroit show, before entering production at Canton, Mississippi and going on sale in the US within 18 months.
That means it's unlikely to arrive in time for Australia's facelifted Patrol, which is yet to be confirmed but is likely to bring the same cosmetic upgrades revealed at the Dubai motor show last November.
When or if it powers the Patrol, the new Cummins-sourced 5.0-litre quad-cam turbo-diesel V8 will be a corker, easily shading the LandCruiser's 195kW/650Nm 4.5-litre twin-turbo diesel V8.
Built at Cummins' Columbus plant in Indiana and already undergoing public-road durability testing in the new Titan, Nissan says it will deliver at least 225kW of power and about 745Nm of torque, and deliver the right kind of towing capacity and fuel consumption expected in America's largest and most competitive vehicle segment.
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Written byMarton Pettendy
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If the price does not contain the notation that it is "Drive Away", the price may not include additional costs, such as stamp duty and other government charges.
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