Quote:
Originally Posted by dyna mo
crockett, i was under the impression those high mileage diesels are not imported into the USA is due to lackluster sales, not government. they've never been marketed to the US properly I think is why the low sales.
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No Japan was actually importing a lot of diesels back in the 80's and the cheap imported cars were killing the big three. Reagan essentially bailed the big three out by placing tariffs on imported Japanese cars driving up their prices and limiting what models they could import and sell at a profit.
At that time VW & Mercedes were the only European cars being imported so there wasn't a lot of competition from Europe but a ton from Japan. I'm not 100% sure how this affected them, but at that point VW stopped importing diesels. It was after Reagan introduced the tariffs that you stopped seeing diesels imported.
I don't know if there was anything specific with diesels in regard to the tariff or if it these companies had to limit the models in order to make a profit. I'm pretty sure it was only Mercedes whom imported diesels after that and I assume it was because they were a higher priced luxury car.
Added to this diesel is taxed at a higher rate than gasoline even though it costs less to produce.
This blame also lays square at the feet of Ronald Reagan.. He brought us the STAA Act which was a tax on big trucks and at the time created a extra 5 cent per gallon tax on diesel fuel in order to pay for road repairs.
Essentially the govt killed the diesel market in the US before it was ever able to get roots. This is why diesel costs over $4/gal on average vs $3.50ish for gasoline because that lovely tax Reagan introduced has stayed put and increased.