o00scorpion00o
Well-known member
RonDawg said:o00scorpion00o said:I would have thought by now 3.0l engines in the U.S would be getting rare in the U.S ?
They are slowly going away. The latest Mazda 6 is no longer available with a 6 cylinder engine, only the 4 cylinder SkyActiv petrol. Same with the Hyundai Sonata and Kia Optima platform twins, and the Ford Fusion (our version of the Mondeo); for these models, turbocharging is the more powerful engine choice.
However our relatively cheap (compared to most parts of the world) petrol means the V-6 engine will be around for some time. It's still a popular option on Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Nissan Altima, and Chevy Malibu, and is still standard equipment on many "entry level luxury" cars like the Toyota Avalon, Lexus ES, and Infiniti G37 (or whatever it's called now). Those car makers who are abandoning it for their small and midsize passenger cars are doing so for CAFE reasons.
Have to say I'm not a huge fan of Turbo's, they introduce lag and I hate lag, one reason I got turned off of Diesels too, well manuals anyway. Diesels have turbo lag and a narrow torque band, so while you have a good surge of acceleration it runs out quickly, so you have to swap cogs and it's this battle of clutch and gears that turn me off of manual diesels.
VAG have the dsg which is much better but. My brother recently got the New A4 S-Line 2.0L TDI DSg Quattro and the quattro is fantastic, the grip is amazing.
The 2.0L 170 HP kicks out 300 Lbs of torque compared to 250 for the 3.2L non turbo @ 250 Lbs.
You have to go all the way to the S4 Quattro Super charged 328 HP which gets only 25 lbs more torque compared to the little 2.0L 170 HP, a simple remap and you's easily get 360 Lbs from the diesel, all from a 2.0L.
It's easy to see why diesels are so popular because you get good torque and acceleration in a cheap to run engine. A 3.2L would cost over 1500 Euro's a year to tax here, that's just for making it legal to drive. Then the cost of petrol is a whopping 8 USD per U.S Gallon ! In the U.S you'd probably run a 3.0Lpetrol cheaper or as cheap than a diesel in the E.U !!!
I always say buy the petrol if you want to race and buy the diesel if you like to have fun at legal speeds, all that HP is fine if you want to drive at 100 mph+ on the German Autobahn but torque is what makes driving fun.
One solution I found to narrow torque bands is cvt transmissions, they work brilliantly with diesels, they can be a little laggy off the line as with many automatics but they are far superior to a manual, then again anything is far superior to a manual.
This is one reason people like the Leaf, it's good good torque and acceleration but only 110 HP, because it doesn't need more hp as it's limited to 80 odd mph, Of course 170 hp and a faster 0-100 Kph like the BMW I3 would be nicer.
I really got to take a drive in the I3 it's supposed to be a lot of fun, I really wish EV makers would give greater power options.