OT/escort diesel

mmidlam · Apr 23, 2012

bought a 1984 Escort diesel with 80000 miles showing. Its claimed they will get +45 MPG. Anyone have a story about these cars and diesels.

Morgan Flowers · Apr 23, 2012

(quoted from post at 23:02:40 04/23/12) bought a 1984 Escort diesel with 80000 miles showing. Its claimed they will get +45 MPG. Anyone have a story about these cars and diesels.

Not on a diesel one, but I get 37-43 mpg in a 96 Escort LX 5 speed. They are good cars. I would like to have a diesel one. Let everyone know what kind of mileage you get.

ShadetreeRet · Apr 23, 2012

Yeah, they get good fuel mileage. When I worked at a Ford dealership one of the techs had one, gave him good service. Never found out who made the engine, but I hope you didn't pay much for it, 'cause when I left there about 10 years ago, Ford had already discontinued a bunch of parts for them. They may still be available through NAPA or other parts distributors. Good luck.

Anonymous-0 · Apr 23, 2012

My Dad had a 1985 Escort diesel wagon, traded it on a 1986 Ford Tempo diesel 4 door. Both were 5 speed sticks, I don't think they offered them in an automatic. I ended up with the Tempo diesel, then picked up an additional one here locally. Sold one for the engine to an individual that summers in Alaska and winters in Missouri. He had one that was pretty much rust free. The other went to a guy in Wisconsin that made his own fuel. Both got mileage in that range, but here in northern Michigan rust got to them. I thought they were a very fuel efficient, good running engine.

Anonymous-0 · Apr 23, 2012

Yes were very common over here in the UK
ford made 1.6 then 1.8 some turboed, idi with rotary pump used in the escorts and fiestas up to 2001 ,then laterly electronic di versions used in the focus along with 1.6 and 2liter peugeot/ford built common rail turbo diesels .

dhermesc · Apr 23, 2012

My understanding is they were a good engine that good mileage - they just didn't have any power at all.

From what I can find they were only rated at 80 hp.

Vito · Apr 23, 2012

I had and one of my brothers had 1,plus he bought mine when i sold it.I have nothing but good things to say about the car.The mileage sounds about right.Prices where cheaper on fuel in the early 90's so I never really kept track of it.

Vito

D7fever · Apr 23, 2012

We had one, ran good, Mitsubishi diesel, worst thing about them, injector pump is belt driven. I bought it used for my son, he used to get 50 mpg with it. Reason we got rid of it, no fuel getting to engine, found out later that it was the fuel pump in the tank.
I had a 1983 ranger diesel too, bought it new ( Mazda engine) ran good , constant 32 mpg. sold it after 250,000 miles. Ran as good day I sold it as day I got it new.

clay Bragg · Apr 23, 2012

Had an 84wagon 5speed 38mpg@80mph drove 40000 mi change timing belt now.thats what killed mine

Gambles · Apr 23, 2012

I actually have one. Great mileage, but no power. Parts for them are getting pretty rare. One weakness is the cylinder head. You don't want to take any material off of them because there's not enough there to begin with. Good luck finding a head gasket from any parts store.

Jerry/MT · Apr 23, 2012

Believe that fuel mileage! I had one for 5 years that regularly got 50 mpg in freeway driving. They"re a Mitsubishi diesel IIRC and they can be hard to work on because the engine is a tight fit in the Escort platform. i sold it to my son and he really flogged it and still got that kind of fuel milage. His wife wrecked it and that was that.

LJD · Apr 23, 2012

I had two. Both fell apart from rust. Got mid-40s in fuel mileage. Parts support for the engines was always awful -but I don't know why. The engine was the best part - and the rest of the car was typical low-quality Escort. The 2 liter diesel was basically a Mazda gas engine converted to diesel. Same basic engine was used up to around 2000 by Suzuki, and even later over seas in the Kia Sportage. I suspect the parts problem is only here in the USA. If you wind up needing some parts - best bet in the USA might be a Suzuki dealer - like in a 2000 diesel Grand Vitara (if it was sold in the USA, I'm not sure).

I still have two 1981 Chevy Chevette diesels which I like much better. Smaller engine but more gutsy and rear wheel drive. The Chevette is actually a German Opel design as I recall. The 1.8 Isuzu diesel is also a conversion from an Isuzu gas engine. Great engines though but again - parts are near impossible to find. Not to be confused with the little Isuzu diesels found in reefers, gen-sets, and small tractors.

Seems when it came to diesels in small cars - gas engines converted to diesel were the norm because that way - the gas engine powertrain parts fit with no effort. Isuzu, Mazda, Nissan, Volkswagen and probably others did the conversion very successfully. And as many know, Oldsmobile tried it and failed miserably.

farmer boy · Apr 23, 2012

I see no reason not to believe that claim. The VW TDI"s are known to get 55-60 mpg in long distance travel if speed is kept reasonable.

oldtanker · Apr 23, 2012

Son had a Chevy Luv diesel, manual 5 speed that would clock 49-50 at 55 if you drove it nice. If you ran it hard it would still run about 45 MPG. Can't see why an Escort couldn't do as well or better.

Rick

huntingreen2day2 · Apr 23, 2012

Had one mileage is about right. Cracked head cost me about 2K. Sold it because it would quit running down the road. Sit and start right back up. Sold it owner found loose ground cable in the trunk area. He had a hail storm hit it and ran over a dog. Both times got out the insurance what he gave me for it.

Bill Krosnicki · Apr 23, 2012

I had one for a while, regularly got 50 mpg. I thought it had pretty decent power. The engine was good but the body was the weak point, rusted out around the rear strut towers. It also went through starters, but they were available, plus a local guy could rebuild them. The engine is a 2.0L Mazda RF.

Goose · Apr 23, 2012

Actually, the Olds 5.7 diesel wasn't a bad engine after they beefed up the bottom end and put a roller cam in it in '82. We had several. It took GM several years to work the bugs out of it and by then EFI was close to matching the 5.7 on mileage.

In '86 I drove an '82 Olds 88 to California. Did a 4,000 mile trip on $118 worth of diesel fuel. Don't remember what the price per gallon was back then.

Everyone told me how horrible that diesel was going to perform in the mountains, but once I got the hang of it, I passed an awful lot of gas burners fair and square. All you had to do was hold it in a lower gear with the shifter and keep the rpm up.

I recall one leg of that trip was Fresno back down to LA. We stopped in Bakersfield and went through a winery. It was July, and 108 degrees in Bakersfield. We hit the grade up the Grapevine north of LA at 3pm. It was like parallel parking on the shoulders of the Interstate with car's hoods open and engines steaming. Good cars, Cadillacs, Mercedes, etc. That Olds diesel went right up, no problem.

I kinda developed an affection for that engine, but when things went to front wheel drive, there weren't that many applications for it.

toolz · Apr 23, 2012

My dad had a Merc Topaz- I think it had the same engine. It got around 45 mpg and had well over 400,000 miles when he sold it. it just wouldn't quit.

bobs old iron · Apr 23, 2012

i have a '83 ranger diesel p/u, it has the mazda engine in it because ford and Mazda were partnership, look at the ford courier p/u, made by mazda for ford, back in the '70's..it was the 2.2diesel..just like G.M. and suzuki, that's where the metro came from,,mo-par and mitsubishi...etc...now Toyota and Chev wanted to merge and have a concept car, but it wouldn't gone over too good being called A TOYLET,,lol

RodinNS · Apr 23, 2012

Have one here but it hasn't been on the road now for 20 years...
It's an escort with the added joy of a gutless Mazda engine. It was a 2.0L, naturally aspirated and rated at a whopping 52 hp at something like 3500 rpm. It got around and it got decent mileage but it didn't set any records on either account. This one also had a cracked head between #2 and #3 glow plug which was what brought about it's demise. Parts were readily available at the time through NAPA although nothing was cheap.

Rod

Doug in IL · Apr 23, 2012

I bought a new 86 Diesel Escort in the fall of 1985. It would get as high as 53 mpg in the summer months and as low as 45mpg in the winter. I drove it to my job every day, a 106 mile round trip. It was mostly Interstate driving at 70-75 mph. The car was virtually troublefree until something over 200,000 miles. Then, it cracked the head. It is still here. We have installed another head on it, but have never finished putting it completely back together. (That's another story, but it involved my son and I having a bit of a disagreement) The Escort was no powerhouse, but would cruise all day at 75 mph. Once you got it there!

Bill(Wis) · Apr 24, 2012

Ford published an ad and also had it on billboards saying: (under a picture of an Escort diesel) "This domestic car gets better mileage than this well known import". And next to it was a picture of a Japaneses motorcycle.

Nathan (SD) · Apr 24, 2012

I worked for a guy that had one in 1993. It was a 85 model that his wife got new. It had 100,00 miles by then. It was the station wagon style. It originally got brought out to be the pilot car on a road job but a couple of us younger punks turned it into the mini service truck.We named it Henry. Weatherproof storage on wheels. The back end always had 500 lbs of junk in it. The luggage rack was good for another 200 lbs. I remember getting on the freeway to go about 100 miles to Fargo for parts. Speed limit was 65 on the freeway. I think it took 2 miles to get up to speed. We worked late into the fall and a couple cold mornings it wouldn't start so we would give it a push with the excavator and pop the clutch. The next summer it got pulled behind a 637 scpraper so you could stand on the roof to reach the rear engine. Scraper guy backed onto it a little bit. Smashed hood and grill and radiator. We took front off and looped the radiator hoses together to drive it around the job site. A salesman at a Ford dealership gave him $1200 cash for it in that condition. That guy had a few of those Ford diesel cars in his collection and Henry became a donor. I got a Chevy Luv diesel a couple years after that. I always thought the Escort was the tougher of the two body wise. The Isuzu in the Chevy Luv is built like a brick. I still got it but the rest of the pickup rusted away.

LJD · Apr 24, 2012

I had to work on many and did work for a local Chevy dealer late 70s into the 80s. We had many severe problems all the 350 diesels until the "law-suit" engine came out in 1981. Flat cam, roller cam, big injectors, pencil injectors, etc. Head gaskets were the biggest issue. Also injection pumps and that problem wasn't fixed until 1985. GM got sued for making such bad engines and they redeveloped the 350 diesel with the new DX block. From what I saw, they were pretty good. But by 1981 -few truck owners cared. The new 6.2 diesel designed by Detroit Diesel was coming out. And - unlike the 350 Olds diesel, the 6.2 was available with 4WD, 3/4 ton and 1 ton trucks. Plus ATS and Banks made turbo kits for the new engine.

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