"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
11/19/2015 at 16:24 • Filed to: None
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"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
11/19/2015 at 16:24 • Filed to: None | 2
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My common (and often unpopular) opinion that I prefer almost all 6-cylinder engines to turbo 4s due to long-term reliability and smoothness reasons is making it harder to keep a shortlist of cars. Hey, after a couple decades of watching friends with European turbo cars face huge repair bills in exchange for a couple extra mpgs, it got into my head and stuck there. I still don’t believe you can add that much complexity to a car and still expect the same amount of trouble-free usage from it. These are business decisions to reach fuel economy numbers and to be only as durable as necessary for the average first and maybe second owner. But everyone seems to be doing it now.
A coworker’s wife recently bought a new Acura RDX, to which I replied “that’s a pretty fun little turbo crossover!” and he responded, “No, they apparently switched to a V6 a couple years ago.” followed by some salesman-based conjecture that customers found the old engine too peaky or something.
Gah?
So who else has bucked the current trend by going from an NA or turbo 4 into a 6+ cylinder engine for the same offering? I don’t know of any others offhand...
Opposite Locksmith
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 16:28 |
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Came here to say Rrx and you took it from me
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 16:36 |
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#TrollingSoMuch
jjhats
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 16:39 |
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The base model bmw’s from 2002 to e21 to e30 to e36 all had 4 cylinders as the base engine. once e46 came it was 6 cylinder exclusively same with e90 generation. Now they are moving back into turbo 4 territory. I had this same argument your having on the FP about the cx-9 and got flamed. I love my turbo 4 but it doesn’t belong in a truck or van or suv
MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 16:39 |
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Does it count that the biggest engine in the Fusion is a 4 cylinder (smaller but has turbo for the EcoBoost) and the MKZ has a V6?
Future next gen S2000 owner
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 16:42 |
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Allegedly?
*I couldn’t think of anything. The C class AMG went from a supercharged 6 to N/A 8 but that is a bit different.
PotbellyJoe and 42 others
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 16:48 |
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How far back are we allowed to go? Because the Mopar 80s-90s switch to V6s could produce a few answers.
Textured Soy Protein
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 16:55 |
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The 1st gen RDX had a turbo 4 and the 2nd gen has a V6. Having driven a 1st gen RDX, on paper it seems like it’d be cool but its automatic transmission sucks and keeps it out of boost too much.
As for your question, sorta kinda but not really....
R30 Skyline RS-Turbo had a 2.0 liter turbo I4
R31 Skyline GTS-R had a 2.0 liter turbo I6
But there were 4- and 6-cylinder trims of both the R30 and R31 Skylines.
TractorPillow
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 16:56 |
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I can’t really answer your question, but will say that I am in agreement with you. I’d rather have a 6 cylinder than turbo 4 in general.
Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 16:59 |
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For the top-end engine, the Ford Thunderbird went from a turbo 4 cyl in 1988 to a supercharged V6 in 1989.
The Pontiac Sunbird GT went from a OHC turbo 4 in 1990 to the 3.1L OHV V6 in 1991.
Ford Probe GT, along with the Mazda MX6/626, went from an underrated (in terms of power) Mazda-built 2.2L turbo 4 to a 2.5L V6 in 1993.
Oh and the top end Mitsu Eclipse went from a turbo 4 in 1999 to a 3.8L V6 in 2000.
davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 17:19 |
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That’s interesting about the RDX. Seems like every company that’s making the move from NA 6s to turbo 4s (or NA 8s to turbo 6s) are doing it in the name of efficiency and meeting ever-tightening CAFE standards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate…
If you’ve listened closely, perfomance makers including BMW M, Porsche, Ferrari, etc. didn’t really want to make this change, but felt than they had to choice to keep pace with their competitor’s power levels while keeping efficiency and emissions in check. The European makes also have reasons to keep displacement at or below 3.0 or 2.0 litres (just look at the displacement figures of many modern engines).
So, the question remains: if this decision has been made in large part to meet regulations and not necessarily to optimize performance or reliability, is it worth taking a risk with a turbo 4 instead of choosing a potentially more reliable NA 6 instead. Like you said, you’ve made your decision, but we’ll be making this call before too long to replace my wife’s car. Time will tell! We do want her next car to make it 200k without too much drama...
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Ash78, voting early and often
> TractorPillow
11/19/2015 at 17:21 |
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My caveat would be for something small and sporty where the extra savings of 100#-200# would really make a difference...but let’s face it, most cars today are tanks and it wouldn’t be very noticeable.
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Ash78, voting early and often
> Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
11/19/2015 at 17:22 |
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You are a wealth of knowledge and I bow before your human Wikipedia skills.
Vítor
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 17:26 |
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This is all I can think
RazoE
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 17:41 |
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I hate V6s. Inline 6s though, that’s another matter. I prefer a turbo 4 cyl to a 6 cyl, so I’m the opposite of you.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 17:53 |
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Or a 4-cylinder hybrid. I put 1,000 miles on a 2015 Ford Fusion hybrid last summer and I was highly impressed with it. One thing that car was good at was sitting in a hot parking lot with the A/C turned on. The engine only ran about half the time. And I was in Virginia in July, and the humidity was high. The A/C in that car was fantastic.
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TractorPillow
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 17:58 |
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Yep. Agreed. That’s why I said in general, I’m an ex Mazdaspeed 3owner and I loved that engine!
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Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/19/2015 at 19:37 |
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Actually I was going mostly from memory. Though I did check Wiki for a bit for BMW cars that went from Turbo 4cyl to I6 because I knew there was a turbo version of the M10 4cyl at one point. But I couldn’t find any info on a road car that used it that was switched to an I6.
But I have this nagging feeling that I did read about a Turbo road car BMW made in the early 1980s.
BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/20/2015 at 05:33 |
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Can’t think of any off the top of my head, but I get past this by not really liking any cars that were made after the year 2000.
The list of cars I like starts with a handful from the 90s and gets larger the further back you go, peaking in the 70s...
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jjhats
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/20/2015 at 15:41 |
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forgot about this one, Nissan 200sx a very rare car went from turbo 4 being top engine to later v-6. good luck finding one at all:
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Ash78, voting early and often
> jjhats
11/20/2015 at 15:44 |
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Wow...the only 200sx I remember is this one:
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jjhats
> Ash78, voting early and often
11/20/2015 at 15:46 |
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me too. heres your chance to buy one:
http://bringatrailer.com/2015/11/19/nic…