MAN D38 (D3876) engine: displacement, ratings and generations

The MAN D38 is an in-line six-cylinder common-rail diesel engine from MAN Truck & Bus; its type designation is D3876 and its displacement 15,256 cm³, which MAN’s documents give as 15.2 or 15.3 litres. MAN introduced it in 2014. In trucks it is reserved for the MAN TGX, according to MAN’s bauma 2019 release, and MAN’s current TGX pages list it at 397, 427 and 471 kW (540, 580 and 640 PS). MAN Engines, a business unit of MAN Truck & Bus, also offers the D3876 for special-purpose vehicles, agricultural and construction machinery and locomotives. On this site it is one of the engines of the MAN TGX.

Status as of 26 October 2026. Read that day: MAN’s TGX specifications and equipment pages; MAN Engines’ D3876 product pages for off-road machinery and for locomotives; MAN Engines’ on-road engine brochure and its two off-road brochures, for construction machinery (status 03/2025) and for agricultural machinery (status 10/2025); and three MAN press releases dated 8 April 2019, 10 February 2020 and 18 April 2023. All ten are the maker’s own documents.

Maker, name and layout

MAN’s release for the bauma 2019 fair, published in German on 8 April 2019, says that MAN Truck & Bus builds four engine series for its trucks at its engine plant in Nuremberg, D08, D15, D26 and D38, and that the common-rail injection system is the element all MAN engines share. In its passage on the D15 the release says that MAN traditionally derives the engine designation from the cylinder bore; for the D38 it gives stroke and bore as “170 / 138 mm”. Its engine table for model year 2019 lists the D38 as an in-line six (“6 Reihe”) with “15.256 ccm”, which is 15,256 cm³, for all three ratings.

The documents round that capacity in different ways. The D38 passage of the same release says “15,2 Liter” and its passage on heavy-haulage tractors “15,3 Liter”. MAN’s TGX specifications page gives 15.2 litres and MAN Engines’ off-road product page 15.26 litres, while MAN Engines’ on-road and off-road brochures, its locomotive page and MAN’s release of 18 April 2023 give 15.3 litres.

The type code carries suffixes that differ by use. MAN Engines’ on-road brochure lists three Euro 6e versions as “LF 17”, “LF 18” and “LF 16” and explains the letters in its key: “D = Diesel engine”, “L = with exhaust turbocharging and intercooling” and “F = front installation”. The off-road product page calls the version for agricultural and construction machinery the D3876 LE12x, and the locomotive page calls the rail version the D3876 LE63x; none of the documents read explains the letter E or the digits after it. The engine in the photograph above is named on its Wikimedia Commons file page as a D3876 LF MAN diesel engine for trucks.

MAN’s release of 18 April 2023 describes what the versions share. It says that “the basic engine and the injection equipment are identical for both on-road and off-road applications”, and that the on-road and off-road versions differ in turbocharging, combustion, electronics, add-on components and exhaust aftertreatment. At MAN, it says, the basic engine includes “the crankcase, the crankshaft, the connecting rod, the piston, the cylinder head including the valve train, the camshaft and the gear drive”, and all D3876 engines use a common-rail system with an injection pressure of 2,500 bar. For the truck engine, MAN’s TGX equipment page names a “Common Rail engine system with injection pressures up to 2,500 bar” and “Two-stage turbocharging with intercooling”. For the off-road engine, MAN Engines’ construction brochure (status 03/2025) gives four valves per cylinder, a “One-stage” exhaust gas turbocharger “with VTG” and Bosch EDC17 engine control, and the off-road product page lists “9-jet direct injection” with a “Common rail (2500 bar)” injection system.

Generations

The MAN documents read show the on-road engine in three stages: its 2014 introduction, the model-year 2019 revision and a Euro 6e version that MAN Engines’ on-road brochure lists for special-purpose vehicles. Off-road versions were released from 2015, and a locomotive version was shown as a concept in 2016.

Introduction in 2014

MAN’s release of 18 April 2023 says the D3876 “was introduced in 2014 as a completely new and independent engine series from MAN Truck & Bus” and that it “has replaced the previous MAN D2868 V8 engine” in commercial vehicles and off-road applications. MAN Engines’ off-road product page says the D3876 LE12x is based on the mass-produced unit of an MAN truck that MAN presented for the first time in 2014 at the IAA Nutzfahrzeuge. The locomotive page dates the engine in trucks from 2014, its release for agricultural applications to 2015 and its release for the construction industry to 2016. The bauma 2019 release says the D38’s ratings of 540, 580 and 640 PS were unchanged in its model-year 2019 version; none of the documents read gives the emission class of the 2014 truck engine or says when each rating was first offered.

Model year 2019

The bauma 2019 release presents a new MAN engine family in Euro 6 form at the fair, held in Munich from 8 to 14 April 2019, and says the D08, D26 and D38 series would be introduced to the market in this form during 2019. For the D38 it gives between 2,700 and 3,000 Nm from 900 rpm, depending on the rating. Its engine table lists 540 PS (397 kW), 580 PS (427 kW) and 640 PS (471 kW), each “@ 1800 U/min”, with “2700 Nm @ 900 - 1380 U/min”, “2900 Nm @ 900 - 1380 U/min” and “3000 Nm @ 900 - 1400 U/min”.

Among the changes the release names for the D38 in this version are measures on the pistons and cylinder liners to reduce friction, and the airless AdBlue injection introduced across the engine family. It adds that the Turbo EVB engine brake is available for the D38 and, with stepped control, delivers up to 630 kW of engine braking power; how such engine brakes work is covered in what is a retarder. The same release says the D38 in-line six-cylinder engines are reserved exclusively for the MAN TGX series and cover the power class above 500 PS.

MAN’s release of 10 February 2020 on its new truck generation says that “As before, the new MAN TGX features a choice of three engine series”, among them the “MAN D38 developing up to 640 hp”.

Euro 6e

MAN Engines’ on-road brochure lists the D3876 in Euro 6e form among its engines for special-purpose vehicles, a group for which it names fire-fighting vehicles, road sweepers, truck modification and all-terrain vehicles as typical applications; it says MAN offers these engines exclusively to original equipment manufacturers. The brochure lists no Euro 5 version of the D3876, and the engine does not appear in its overview of engines for buses. The brochure carries the code D114.650 and no date.

The brochure gives all three ratings at 1,800 rpm and the exhaust gas aftertreatment as “SCRT® only”. MAN’s TGX equipment page lists the D38 with “397 kW – 427 kW – 471 kW”, and the TGX specifications page gives the D3876 as “6 in-line” with 15.2 litres under a column headed “Euro 6 emission standard”. For the 540 hp rating the brochure gives 396 kW, while the TGX pages and the 2019 table give 397 kW; none of the documents explains the difference. None of them dates the Euro 6e version or lists changes made for it.

The brochure gives its ratings “according to ISO 1585 89/491 EEC”, while MAN Engines’ 2025 off-road brochures give power “according to ISO 3046-1”. How kilowatts, horsepower and newton-metres relate is explained in reading truck power figures.

Off-road and rail versions

MAN Engines lists the D3876 for agricultural and construction machinery and for locomotives; its product pages and brochures give a nominal speed of 1,800 rpm for each version.

The off-road product page gives the horsepower of its range three ways: “565, 612 and 660 HP” in its text, “556 to 660 HP” in a feature box and “465 – 660” in its technical data. The same page names a “VTG (variable turbine geometry) turbocharger” in its text and “wastegate turbocharging” in a feature box, and gives the torque band as 1,050 to 1,450 rpm, where the 2025 brochures give 1,100 to 1,500 rpm. The page carries no date; the brochures are dated by their status lines.

For locomotives, the product page describes the D3876 LE63x as a diesel engine “for EU Stage V locomotives without exhaust gas aftertreatment system”, with a VTG turbocharger and an injection system “offering up to 2,500 bar”, and says it was first presented as a concept at InnoTrans 2016. MAN’s release of 18 April 2023 reports that MAN Engines equips the PistenBully 800 snow groomer of Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug AG with the D3876, adapted together with its exhaust gas aftertreatment system, and gives that engine 2,900 Nm and 612 hp (450 kW).

Fuels and emission class

The D38 is a diesel engine; MAN Engines’ off-road product page gives its operating mode as “4-stroke diesel”. MAN’s bauma 2019 release states that all four engine series, D08, D15, D26 and D38, can be run without subsequent conversion on paraffinic fuels such as hydrogenated vegetable oils to EN 15940. MAN’s release of 18 April 2023 says the D3876 “is approved for operation with HVO (hydrogenated vegetable oil), also known as regenerative diesel – according to the EN15940 standard”, and that “Customers can use it to replace conventional diesel fuel – or even mix it”. What that standard covers is set out in what is HVO fuel. None of the MAN documents read lists a gas version of the D3876. The 2023 release says MAN Engines has concepts for a hydrogen combustion engine for off-road applications, the MAN H4576, which “is based on the basic engine of the MAN D3876 and uses the same installation dimensions”; it calls it a concept and names an exhibit of it at the Interalpin fair in Innsbruck in April 2023.

The emission class the documents give depends on the use. For trucks, the bauma 2019 release presents the model-year 2019 engines in Euro 6 form and MAN’s TGX specifications page lists the D3876 under “Euro 6 emission standard”. For special-purpose vehicles, MAN Engines’ on-road brochure gives the Euro 6e versions with “SCRT® only” aftertreatment; the brochure notes that SCRT® is a registered trademark of HJS Emission Technology GmbH and Johnson Matthey PLC. The bauma 2019 release adds airless AdBlue injection for the D38. The steps from Euro VI A to E, and why spec sheets write them as Euro 6e, are covered in Euro VI and Euro 7, and how SCR and AdBlue work in SCR and AdBlue explained.

For off-road machinery, MAN Engines’ product page gives the exhaust status as “97/68/EC (2004/26/EC) Stage IV US EPA Tier 4 final/CARB” with “EGR/SCR” aftertreatment, and says the engine “is already prepared for EU Stage V”. Its 2025 brochures list the exhaust technology as “AGR, DOC/DPF, SCR” and the emissions status as “LRC options”, “US EPA/CARB Tier 4” and “EU Stage V”, with “more on request”; their footnotes explain LRC as “Low regulated country” and the LRC options as available “On request”. The 2023 release says the D3876 in the PistenBully 800 complies with EU Stage V. The locomotive version meets EU Stage V with exhaust gas recirculation and without an exhaust gas aftertreatment system, according to its product page.

Trucks and buses on this site with the MAN D38 (D3876)

One model page on this site lists the D38: the MAN TGX. The figures below are those of that model’s own page and the maker’s source it cites, as the page records the engine; they are not the engine-level tables above. No bus page on this site lists the engine.