For all that hoopla degrading MB diesels, I have yet to see a Sprinter on the side of the road, and around here. both UPS and FEDEX are using them. I typically see at least a dozen of these vans daily on the highways. If the new MB diesels were truly that bad, these vans should be all over the breakdown lanes.

As for the electronics, that's the price that we're all going to have to pay for progress. Emissions laws will only be getting tighter, and to make these engines meet them, they will have to look at even higher operating pressures than even what's out there today. The finer the mist of the injected fuel, the cleaner the burn. The only way to do this, and have them be quiet as well, is to have pilot injection, and operate with these monstorous pressures. Class 8 truck engines were already beginning to go electronic 10 years ago when I got into trucking. 5 years later, when I left that industry, unless you bought an older truck, you had electronics. It will mean more complex engines with more opportunity for something to fail. Head stresses SHOULD be going down however, as the DI engines normally have sub 20:1 compression ratios to help reduce NOx emissions at the source.