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I am a retired diesel mechanic. You will find good and bad in any product and diesels are no exception. Most of the problems with diesel engines in small vehicles come down to the manufacturers trying to make them perform like a petrol engine, pull like a tractor, run on the smell of an oily rag and meet pollution requirements all at the same time. They reduce the capacity and boost intake pressure to levels that would have seemed insane not too long ago to increase performance and improve fuel economy and add EGR and CAT Converters to reduce pollution. Common Rail Injection is a recent innovation that addresses all of the above requirements and all of these innovations are potential sources of problems. They all inter-react and a small problem can quickly turn into an avalanche.
Add to the previous the drive to reduce the weight of every component and I think you will begin to appreciate that diesel engines in cars are not the almost bullet proof units that earned diesel engines a reputation for reliability.
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