I just spent almost 3 weeks driving a diesel Opal and a diesel Volvo in France and Spain. Overall the experience was good. However:
1. The fuel stinks and service stations provide disposable gloves to keep it off your hands. They need to factor this into the “greenness” of diesel.
2. The combustion in the engines is still quite noisy and sounds like a dieseling Otto cycle engine. They are nowhere near as quiet as gasoline engines, especially at idle and under load.
3. They are certainly much cleaner and the combustion products do not smell as bad as they used to. But, under heavy load, European diesels still emit some pretty good puffs of soot. Again, not objectionable, but visibly not as clean as gasoline.
Mr. Ciatti’s explanation of glow plugs needs some work. Their purpose is not to warm to fuel to reduce viscosity in cold weather. It is to provide an ignition source when the cold engine block absorbs too much compression heat, thus inhibiting a cold start. I’m sure Mr. Ciatti knows this and this is a problem of the author not getting it right.
Re the stinky fuel, I think they add something in Europe to make it stink...........made in France,.................
,,, you're right. I'm in New Zealand. I just sold a Benz 108CDi turbo diesel Vito van that I'd done 347,000km in. It was a sootmeister. I've replaced it with a turbo diesel Ford Focus wagon (1,8 litre) and it flies and is a lot cleaner. It's German assembled, with cruise control. The South African assembled model doesn't have cruise control. I don't think I could go back to petrol - there's just so much more to a tank with diesel.