2008 Volkswagen Touareg 2

VW Touareg V10 TDI – Click above for high-res image gallery When the Volkswagen Touareg first arrived around five years ago, the SUV became the first production home to Volkswagen's then-new V10 TDI engine. However, as the old saw goes, "Time waits for no man"... or machine apparently. After a relatively short run, Volkswagen's 5.0L V10 turbodiesel is soon being consigned to the scrap heap of history. Increasingly stringent emissions requirements have meant that the V10 could only be sold in 45 states for the last two years with sales in the large market of California being verboten. The Touareg will, of course, live on, and the TDI version will be transformed early next year into a new 50-state legal version using the same 3.0L diesel V6 that propels the Q7 we drove during the recent Audi Mileage Marathon. The Touareg itself was not only the first application for the diesel V10, it was also Volkswagen's first SUV. The architecture of the Touareg was developed in cooperation with long-time "friend" Porsche who happen to use the same platform for its Cayenne. Later, Audi popped out its own longer wheelbase variant as the Q7. Find out what it's like to live with this lame duck diesel beast after the jump. %Gallery-35456% Photos Copyright ©2008 Sam Abuelsamid / Weblogs, Inc. Volkswagen's V10 diesel first appeared in a 1999 show car called the Concept D and then later in January 2000 at the Detroit Auto Show in the Advanced Activity Concept or AAC. The AAC was a truck concept with a front half that previewed the look of the Touareg. Eventually its V10 would be used by both the Touareg and the ill-fated Phaeton luxury sedan. The twin turbocharged V10 was unusual in having an aluminum cylinder block, a rarity in diesel engines. The lower end of the block contained a cast iron main bearing carrier to hold the crankshaft with its offset crank-pins. The off-set crank is needed to provide even firing intervals with the cylinder banks spread at a 90-degree angle. This V10 is the last new VW diesel designed with the "pumpe-duse" injection system. The pumpe-duse, or pump nozzle system, uses an individual high pressure fuel pump for each cylinder directly connected to the fuel injector. This same system is now being replaced in new Volkswagen-Audi diesel engines with common rail systems that can control fuel flow more precisely. A single camshaft sits in each cylinder head actuating just one intake and one exhaust valve per cylinder. All that hardware provides no shortage of grunt as the V10 generates 310 hp and 553 lb-ft of torque, which is handy considering the Touareg has to drag around 5,800 lbs before even loading up. Interestingly, while this V10 is the largest displacement diesel VW makes, it's no longer the most powerful. That honor goes to the 4.2L V8 TDI used by sister brand Audi in the A8 and Q7 in Europe. I had a chance to try out a Q7 4.2 …
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