It’s no secret that diesel vehicles never really took off in the U.S. like they did in Europe and other places. That doesn’t mean no one in the U.S. likes diesels, though. In fact, there are even diesel engines produced in the U.S. by American automakers, and some of them are actually pretty good. 

There are several benefits to owning a diesel. They generally make more torque than gas engines, thereby giving you superior towing performance. In the correct application, they can also produce superior fuel economy and they can last much longer than many gas engines, to boot. They’re not great at everything, but they probably should be more popular.

The biggest downside is price. If you haven’t shopped for a diesel truck lately, they’re not cheap. The fact that diesel options are usually restricted to any given brand’s largest and most powerful trucks and body-on-frame SUVs drives the costs even higher, too. That makes shopping for a diesel pretty difficult, especially if you’re on a limited budget. Affordability is a relative concept, but here are some trucks and SUVs with diesel engines that go for less than the cost of the cheapest brand-new diesel truck right now. 

Diesel vehicles aren’t cheap to buy new, and a good example of that is the Chevy Silverado 1500. It is, at least in the model year 2026, the least expensive vehicle of any type that can come with a diesel engine. If you price out a build on Chevy’s website, you can get one with Chevy’s TurboMax diesel for about $48,000 and with destination fees and markups, that ends up being around $55,000, at least before before any discounts, and depending on where you live and what the inventory looks like. 

In terms of capability, the Chevy Silverado 1500 is pretty good overall. It comes with an optional 3.0-liter turbodiesel that makes 277 hp and 460 lb-ft of torque. It’s the slowest of the Chevy Silverado engines, but it makes up for that by having the best tow capacity at 13,200 pounds when properly equipped. For reference, that’s 2,000 pounds more than you get the 5.3-liter V8. The diesel engine also gets the best fuel economy of the Silverado’s engine options, putting up 23 MPG in the city, 28 MPG on the highway, and 25 MPG combined.

The $55,000 isn’t terribly affordable, but it is the most affordable brand-new diesel-powered vehicle you can buy on today’s market. 

The first of many used diesel-powered trucks and SUVs starts here with the Ford F-250, also known as the Ford F-Series Super Duty. Ford has been putting diesels in trucks for generations, starting back in 1983. Thus, there are plenty of diesel-powered F-250s sitting around on dealership lots waiting to be purchased. Prices vary greatly based on model year and mileage, but for under 100,000 miles and in a relatively recent model year, you’re looking at roughly $45,000, give or take. 

These trucks are usually rock solid, providing plenty of power and capability for doing what diesel engines do best: work. Modern F-250s come with Ford’s Power Stroke diesel, a 6.7-liter V8 behemoth that outputs 457 hp and a whopping 1,050 lb-ft of torque. That engine has a history of being quite reliable, provided you skip the F-250’s off years. With those figures, the F-250 in the years mentioned above can carry about 7,850 pounds of payload and tow up to 37,000 pounds with a fifth wheel and a gooseneck hitch. 

This isn’t something we’d recommend for everyday driving, but if you need a diesel truck to do some work, the F-250 is a solid option. 

Diesel engines are fairly new to the GMC Sierra 1500. GM started adding them with the 2020 model year and continues to do so to this day. The first three model years used the LM2 diesel engine from GM and every other model year (as of this writing) uses the LZ0. You can find GMC Sierras with the LM2 engine on the used market pretty reliably. Prices range depending on year and condition, but most seem to hang out around the $40,000 range.

Despite being a last generation engine, the 3.0-liter V6 turbodiesel engine in 2020-2022 GMC Sierra 1500s were actually pretty good. It made 277 hp and 460 lb-ft of torque, which put it in line with other full-size truck diesels. It’s not quite as strong as the LZ0 that replaced it in more recent model years, but it was still able to tow 9,200 pounds, making it stronger than the regular gas V6 and the 2.7-liter turbo-four engine options. 

The diesel was also the Sierra 1500’s most fuel-efficient engine, putting up 23 MPG in the city and 30 MPG on the highway. For comparison’s sake, the standard V8 on the Denali trim did 15 MPG in the city and 20 MPG on the highway. 

It’s a bit of a rarity, but the Ford F-150 can be found with a diesel engine. Ford began putting diesel engines in the F-150 for the 2018 model year and then discontinued it just a few years later in 2021. That means you have four model years to sift through. The good news is that these trucks appear to have depreciated rather quickly, and even with under 100,000 miles, you can find diesel Ford F-150s for about $35,000, and we even found examples of them dipping below $30,000 on occasion. 

The engine you’re looking for is the 3.0-liter Ford Power Stroke V6 turbodiesel. This plucky little Power Stroke made up to 250 hp and 440 lb-ft of torque. Unlike most trucks, the diesel was one of the weaker options in the engine lineup, putting up 1,840 pounds of payload capacity, the lowest of any of the F-150’s engines from those years. It also sits mid-pack in terms of towing, with 12,100 pounds of capacity. 

So, while it’s not the strongest F-150 on the block, the diesel engine certainly makes these models among the most unique in modern model years. 

The Jeep Wrangler is similar to the Ford F-150 where it only had a brief stint with a diesel engine. It first appeared in the off-road champion in 2020 and lasted until 2023. That means you only have a few model years to work with if you want to try out a rock crawler with a diesel. Prices for the Jeep Wrangler range from the mid-$20,000 range up over $40,000 but seem to hang out around the $35,000 mark if you want one with a reasonable number of miles. Despite the lack of model years, there are over 1,000 of these Wranglers on the used market as of this writing. 

Wranglers have a bunch of engine options, and the diesel was one of them. The one Jeep went with was a 3.0-liter V6 turbodiesel that made 260 hp and 442 lb-ft of torque. In fact, it’s the same Ecodiesel engine used in the Ram 1500 during those same model years, and the specs are the same. According to reviews, the diesel-powered Wrangler drove nicely and fit right into the lineup. 

The only downside was that the diesel was a $4,000 add-on that added another $2,000 for the eight-speed transmission. That ballooned prices of a new one pretty quickly.

The Chevrolet Colorado is tied for the smallest truck on the list with a diesel engine, though Chevy only stuffed one into it until the 2023 model year, when the engine option was discontinued. It didn’t appear to be the Colorado’s most popular configuration option. Currently, there are less than 200 listings nationwide for a Colorado with a diesel, although more probably exist than that. They go for as low as around $22,000 and up to over $40,000. Most sit around $30,000, which makes them quite affordable in the scope of diesel-powered trucks. 

The diesel engine in the Colorado is smaller than most of the other diesels on the list. It’s a 2.8-liter four-cylinder turbodiesel that output 181 hp and 369 lb-ft of torque. Those seem like rookie numbers for a diesel, but it was the required engine if you wanted to hit the Colorado’s 7,700-pound maximum tow rating. As per the norm, it also had the best fuel economy. At 20 MPG in the city and 30 MPG on the highway, it topped both of the other engines. 

Other than that, reviewers seem to agree that the Colorado is a pretty nice mid-size truck overall, and competes with others in the segment, even with the diesel. 

The Nissan Titan XD sat in a weird spot in Nissan’s lineup for a long time. It took elements of the standard full-size truck and mixed it with the heavier duty models to make a sort of heavy-duty hybrid. It lasted until the 2024 model year. Used models exist on the market, and usually hang out around $27,500, with some dipping below $20,000. 

The Titan XD came standard with a 5.6-liter V8, but had an optional 5.0-liter V6 Cummins turbodiesel. It made 310 hp and 555 lb-ft of torque. That monster could tow up to 12,760 pounds, which is max for the Titan XD, and could carry over 2,000 pounds of payload. It was classified as a heavy-duty truck, so it didn’t have official EPA figures, but reviewers got about 18 MPG in mixed driving conditions. 

This truck is available for a fairly affordable price compared to other heavy-duty trucks. However, that doesn’t come without some caveats. The Cummins diesel was known for having quite a lot of mechanical problems, especially early on. So, this is here for educational purposes, but you may want to look more into it before buying one. 

The Ram 1500 is one of the most popular trucks in the U.S. and it came with an ecodiesel engine for a decade, between 2014 and 2023. There are tons of these available on the open market, and as long as mileage isn’t an issue, you can get them pretty cheap. Even if mileage is an issue, you can find these with under 100,000 miles for around $20,000 pretty regularly, although they do tend to go for around $25,000 more often on average. Of course, mileage and model year have a pretty big impact here too. 

The Ram 1500 has been among the best full-size pickups alongside the Ford F-150, Toyota Tundra, and Chevy Silverado for decades, and so you pretty much know how this is going to go. Ram has a bunch of engine options and a ton of trim levels available for this thing, and one of those engine options was a 3.0-liter four-cylinder turbodiesel that made 240 hp and 420 lb-ft of torque. Its maximum tow rating is 12,560 pounds, which is just 190 pounds behind the strongest engine, a 5.7-liter Hemi V8. 

As per the norm, though, the 3.0-liter diesel gets way better fuel economy than the Hemi V8. 

The GMC Canyon is the stablemate of the Chevy Colorado, and the two are tied as the smallest trucks on the list with diesel engines. GMC took a similar path with the Canyon that it did with the Colorado. It started putting diesel engines in during the mid-2010s and then ceased after the 2023 model year. It wasn’t GMC’s most popular open, and there are less than 100 of these for sale nationwide as of this writing. However, it is still a diesel truck, and you can still buy it for around $25,000 consistently, depending on mileage and location. 

The diesel engine in the Canyon is identical to the one in the Chevy Colorado. It was a 2.8-liter four-cylinder turbodiesel that made 181 hp and 369 lb-ft of torque. Also like the Colorado, you needed this engine to reach the peak tow capacity of the Canyon, which sits at 7,700 pounds, which is, again, the same as the Colorado. Yep, it’s also the most fuel-efficient engine, although not by much when compared to the four-cylinder engine the truck comes with stock. 

It’s mostly an apples-to-apples comparison to the Colorado. However, for some reason, the Canyon is generally much cheaper than its Chevy-born sibling. 

The list has been dominated by trucks so far, but some diesel SUVs are somewhat affordable. I never thought I’d be writing that sentence for a BMW, but here we are. The X5 came with multiple diesel engines up through the 2018 model year. There aren’t a lot of diesel units on the used market, but the ones that do exist sell for a very reasonable $20,000, give or take a few thousand. 

Most of what’s left are models from the 2010s, and so most of them should have BMW’s 3.0-liter six-cylinder turbodiesel that packs roughly 255 hp and 413 lb-ft of torque, depending on the year. It was also the most fuel-efficient non-hybrid model for most of the years it was in service, putting up 23 MPG in the city and 29 MPG on the highway. The hybrid did better overall, but all the other gas engines did worse. 

Considering that these vehicles started life costing well north of their used values, you can get a pretty nice vehicle for not that much money. 

There’s a reason we don’t have full-size SUVs with diesel engines haven’t appeared on this list yet — they are just so expensive. Jeep calls the Grand Cherokee a full-size SUV, but most automotive websites list it as a mid-size SUV, so the trend continues. Despite its faux full-size label, this is one of the least expensive trucks or SUVs with a diesel engine on the used market. You can routinely find them for under $20,000, and a couple may squeeze below the $10,000 mark, although those do have higher miles. 

Like a few other Jeeps, the Grand Cherokee was made with a 3.0-liter V6 turbodiesel for a little while before the automaker stopped after the 2019 model year. Up to that point, the Grand Cherokee had the same optional 3.0-liter V6 turbodiesel found the Jeep Wrangler during the same model years. That means it made 240 hp and 420 lb-ft of torque. Thanks to that, the Grand Cherokee had impressive tow numbers for its mid-size SUV class, allowing for up to 7,400 pounds when properly equipped. 

In all, it’s a pretty decent SUV, according to reviews, but the diesel appears to be rather forgettable since there aren’t many with that drivetrain and it didn’t appear to be too popular. 

The title for the most affordable diesel truck or SUV goes to the very small Audi Q5. This compact crossover carried a diesel engine for only a few years in the mid-2010s, and so the Q5 is also one of the oldest vehicles on the list that you can still buy on the used market. There aren’t a ton of these models available on the market with the diesel engine, but there are a few, and they’re relatively inexpensive. They pretty consistently hang out around $15,000, and most of them have well less than 100,000 miles on the odometer. 

This was a sportier entrant into the crossover segment, and as such, the 3.0-liter V6 turbodiesel in these things were actually pretty strong. They made 337 hp and 516 lb-ft of torque and rushed to 60 mph in about five seconds. There is another variant with 240 hp and 428 lb-ft of torque, which is a lot more indicative of the era, that could still sprint to 60 mph in about six seconds. 

Reviewers noted that the diesel had smooth, powerful acceleration, and that it paired well with the handling ability of the Q5. It wasn’t the comfortable car, though, and could be a bit bouncy over rougher concrete. 

Diesel engines in the U.S. aren’t terribly common, so it did not take long to narrow down the various makes and models that either had them in the recent past or have them today. From there, it was just figuring out which of these vehicles were affordable enough to put on a list like this. All new diesel-powered SUVs and trucks on the market are over $55,000 brand new, so the logical conclusion was to dip into the used market to see how low prices could potentially go. 

All SUVs and trucks above were found using nationwide searches of popular car sales websites like Cars.com and Edmunds, with a hefty set of filters applied. All vehicles above have to be available used, for less than the price of a new Chevy Silverado 1500 diesel ($55,000) and be generally available with under 100,000 miles, since those usually have a fair bit of life left in them. After all, there are much cheaper diesel SUVs and trucks out there, but what’s the point if they’re at the end of their expected lifespan? 

The list above is not exhaustive, either. There are a few other models, like the Chevy Suburban, which could squeeze in on the more expensive half of the list, so it’s still worth looking around to see what you can find.