Diesel-engined motor vehicles are becoming ever-increasingly more popular than petrol powered variants. Diesel engines need to be built stronger than petrol engines to cope with the higher compression which the diesel fuel-mix demands for combustion.

Diesel engines are used from factories to flour mills, ships to tractors. Diesel engines are very common worldwide. Diesel engines are the preferred choice for trucking companies. Traditionally, diesel engines have provided high levels of torque at low engine rpm, making them a very useful workhorse for other purposes aside from powering motor vehicles.

In reality, however, diesel engines have traditionally been less responsive on the open road, making them harder to keep up at the legal limit due to the apparent lack of performance and punch otherwise found in petrol powered vehicles.

To counteract this trend, engineers attached turbos onto diesel engines to provide better performance for the open road. The performance of the turbo diesel engine was a great improvement over the standard diesel motor, and today the turbo diesel has successfully become prominent on a global scale.

What the turbo diesel has added to the performance of the standard diesel engine is that extra bit of zest and zip. The turbo sucks in more air to lift the vehicle’s acceleration – particularly at motorway speeds.

Turbo diesels are very common in Australia’s four wheel drive fleet. New turbo diesel 4X4 variants can be found on the popular showroom floors of Toyota, Nissan, Land Rover and Mitsubishi.

Turbo diesel motor cars are becoming prevalent too. BMW, Lexus, Jaguar, Mercedes Benz and Peugeot are some of the big names in car manufacturing that offer high performance, genuine 220 km/h plus, luxury cars boasting turbo diesel engines.

Check out Private Fleet’s list for great turbo diesel motor vehicles and be impressed.We hope that helps answer the question ‘What is What is Turbo Diesel?’!

Back to Car Glossary