That Olds 350DX really killed the entire roll out of light duty diesels in American spec cars. Mercedes never had an issue, it always comes back to the Detroit iron having crappy engines. Everything in the 80's was noisy and smelly, most were slow too. Ford had some serious issues moving on from the 7.3 and hurt its reputation. I remember International said its new generation of diesels would be revolutionary in that they test each one before going into service. Turns out that the short amount of run time never showed the fuel leak that popped up after it went out for delivery to the customer. Seems like most have been a big let down on the American market. Sure you can pick up a used truck, spend about $3k on it doing head gaskets, studs, deleting EGR, deleting emission components, etc. and will probably have good service life. Thats just the way it is with the 6.5, 6.0, 6.4, etc. engines. I'm sure no one after spending $40-60k on a new truck wants to hear that though. Realistically the Cummins has been the only engine that survived well in that area of the market. 1st gen Duramax engines did pretty decent.
I think the ultimate fate for domestic diesel has been all the new expensive emission components. I think the only thing that will save that market is much higher fuel economy offerings. Let's face it, the buyer has to spend a premium to get the engine, feed it more expensive fuel, add DEF, and shell out more money for repairs to keep that bastard child catalytic converters running along with all the temp/pressure sensors...it's a tough sell for the average buyer of a Chevy Cruze, Jetta, etc. to face. A 1 ton work truck, probably a no brainer and they don't need to be sold on why a diesel is better. It's a rough crowd. I really hope Chrysler does well selling diesels in SUV's and 1/2ton trucks, it may get the ball rolling in non-1ton diesel sales.
I think we will look back on today's diesels and compare them to what the carb'd engines went through during the 80's with the pellet catalytic converters and air injection components. Only difference is electronics are keeping these things making a ton of power. They just need a cat the size of a coffee table that costs $6k to replace...yikes!
Either way, I won't own one. I'd rather build a truck with a real diesel engine then have an $800 a month payment for one that requires a scan tool