Why do you care how many cylinders? Every heavy-duty truck in the US is a 6 with a turbo. Yes diesel, but the point is you couldn't give away a V8 to a trucker. Oddly enough Mercedes uses V6s and V8s in their non-US trucks. Point is you care about power, not cylinders.
This is false. While the base engine may be crap, turbo'd engines are typically most efficient when the turbo is wound up. Also, smaller displacement is more efficient if all else is equal. All else includes technology, so a junky small engine will not be as efficient as a bigger engine with a bunch of hi tech goodies like . . . uh . . . turbos.
Sure it would. Despite all of the marketing BS, horsepower wins races AND pulls loads. If you got more power, and the tranny to put it in the right power band (hence the 8 speed) then more horsepower will always do more work. This assumes all else is equal like weight.
Absolutes are an interesting thing. There are often exceptions, but things like a V8 is better, or Turbos will cost more money, or nothing pulls like a diesel, are false before the ink dries. I have a 2003 VW GTI with a 1.8 Turbo. It has 135,000 miles on it. Driven by teenagers (boys) and abused. Crap maintenance, missed oil changes, probably has had only two air cleaners replaced. Pulls like a champ, turbo has never been replaced and I can get one for $300.
And yes, all turbo'd engines pull like a diesel. Both are turbocharged and that's why they feel like that, not because one is a diesel. Oh, and Europeans run small turbo'd diesels in most of their cars. I would jump to buy that little 3.0 liter from Dodge. It will rev faster, and behave better than a US version. I am very confident of that. I know more about Cummins than I know about VM Mortori, but the Italians know more about light duty diesels. It will be a winner.
