The age of engine downsizing is over, says Volkswagen

bhtooefr

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Where exactly did you get the conclusion that environmental progress is stopping?

It's possible in the US that emissions and fuel economy standards are going to be stopped or be rolled back, but outside of the US, standards are still advancing quite rapidly - possibly more rapidly in Europe, due to standards changing in response to widespread cheating.

All that means is, the new engines are going to have larger displacement, and less turbocharging.
 

kjclow

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993er

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The trend of making engines smaller is over...
Maybe, maybe not.

But it is why I snapped up a new 2017 Acura RDX Elite with the 3.5L normally aspirated V6 before Acura brings back the 4 cylinder turbo in their third generation. Their first generation had a 4 cylinder turbo as well.

Not worried about the consumption since I only put 12K kms (7500 miles) a year on my daily driver and consumption (if that matters) is in the ball park of my first generation Honda CR-V that had a 4 cylinder.

A damn nice vehicle, revs as low, has more space and rides far better.
 

20IndigoBlue02

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Maybe, maybe not.

But it is why I snapped up a new 2017 Acura RDX Elite with the 3.5L normally aspirated V6 before Acura brings back the 4 cylinder turbo in their third generation. Their first generation had a 4 cylinder turbo as well.

Not worried about the consumption since I only put 12K kms (7500 miles) a year on my daily driver and consumption (if that matters) is in the ball park of my first generation Honda CR-V that had a 4 cylinder.

A damn nice vehicle, revs as low, has more space and rides far better.
speaking of CR-V's. the new CR-V's upgraded engine is a 1.5L turbo. the standard engine is the carry over 2.4
 

993er

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speaking of CR-V's. the new CR-V's upgraded engine is a 1.5L turbo.
That and the CVT transmission is exactly why I did not even consider one. How long will an over stressed engine last in a car that size?

These damn turbos everyone is going to. Time to buy stock in turbo charger manufacturers.

My 1st gen CR-V had a 2.0 liter. Terrible gas mileage for a small engine and the thing reved at 3000 RPM at 100 KPH (62 MPH). I lived with that for almost 15 years. Good and reliable though.

Love my new Acura RDX.
 

tadawson

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I dunno . . . since 1985, I have owned *one* vehicle that was not turbocharged, and have had zero turbo problems (and tend to own cars to high mileage). In my view, it's a rock solid technology that is far suberior to stone age big iron sea anchor-ish blocks. YMMV . . . . me, I'll typically opt of the turboed engine.

- Tim
 
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oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
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outside St Louis, MO
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There are just too many to list....
Other than maybe having a little less tolerance to neglect, the smaller displacement turbocharged engines so far have been holding up fine. I've not seen widespread problems with any of them from any manufacturers. And to be fair, most manufacturers have had turbocharged engines for quite some time, or had them in the past. Turbocharging is not exactly "new" technology. I think the only reason it was limited mostly to performance models was due to costs and no need for ever higher CAFE requirements.

I also feel that the engines are designed and built with materials that take into account turbocharging from the onset. Something the older engines did not necessarily have in their favor. Ford's "Nano" 2.7L V6, for instance, was developed to be a direct-injected turbocharged engine from its initial design phase. It was even designed to have a diesel variant, and Ford went so far as to use the same block casting procedure and materials as their 6.7L diesel V8. So unlike the Cyclone V6s, which in Ecoboost form are essentially an older non-turbo design engine with two turbochargers and a DI fuel system added on, the Nano may be in the end less stressed overall despite it being smaller in both displacement and physical size.

Only time will tell for sure, though.
 

993er

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Only time will tell for sure, though.
We'll see. I look at long term ownership costs and by that I mean at least 10 years or almost 15 as in the car before my TDI.

Other than a timing belt and water pump replacement, I frown on any engine or transmission that has to be opened up in the life of the car. A turbo is just another expensive replacement part; if it costed $100, I would not care. As for a turbo in my TDI, I accepted having one for the other advantages.
 

Mythdoc

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^^if only cars were designed for long term use, but they are designed only to a 125K mileage window, at which point they are assumed to be retired from the road. Planned obsolescence. Winterkorn's oil consumption Audi 2.0's barely make it to 80K, all because of saving a few cents on piston rings.
 

PlaneCrazy

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We'll see. I look at long term ownership costs and by that I mean at least 10 years or almost 15 as in the car before my TDI.

Other than a timing belt and water pump replacement, I frown on any engine or transmission that has to be opened up in the life of the car. A turbo is just another expensive replacement part; if it costed $100, I would not care. As for a turbo in my TDI, I accepted having one for the other advantages.
Pre-CR TDIs at least had much lower exhaust gas temperature than gas engines, which should help turbo longevity, though TDI failures were not unheard of especially on chipped engines.

That said, having driven both the VW 2.5 5-cyl non-turbo, and my current 1.8 TSI, even though output (HP and torque) are nearly the same, the 1.8 turbo is far, far more pleasant to use. Full torque is on tap at 1500 rpm, the engine is much smoother and quieter, and fuel economy is significantly better (at least 1.0 L/100 km on the highway). Given the rust realities here I plan to trade it (or rather sell it to my son) at 5 years/120k km whichever comes first. But so far so good.

I ran the 2.0T in my B6 Passat wagon (6-mt) up to 160k km with no issues other than well-documented high oil consumption which isn't related to the turbo. It was a new undocumented VW feature, semi-self-changing oil :D

I feel if you drive normally and are rigorous about oil & filter change intervals and use the correct grade of oil, turbos should last a good long time. I have less faith in DPF and HPFP longevity on the CR TDIs than in turbo life, and those components can theoretically cost much more than a turbo to replace, especially the HPFP and required hardware changes post-failure.
 

20IndigoBlue02

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We'll see. I look at long term ownership costs and by that I mean at least 10 years or almost 15 as in the car before my TDI.

Other than a timing belt and water pump replacement, I frown on any engine or transmission that has to be opened up in the life of the car. A turbo is just another expensive replacement part; if it costed $100, I would not care. As for a turbo in my TDI, I accepted having one for the other advantages.
Changing the fluid in a manual transmission or automatic transmission is good for long term reliability.

Subaru CVT's, however, are fully sealed. When the fluid goes, it takes out the rest of the transmission and you need a new transmission replacement, which is not cheap.
 

PlaneCrazy

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Gone...
Of course, these downsized turbo engines will end up sprouting GPFs themselves...
Hopefully by then electric car range will be high enough to make them a viable option for me, at least as a second car (I figure I need at least 300 km range at an affordable price- i.e. no Teslas- before I'll consider one).

I like the e-Golf but at 200 km range it just comes up a bit short. At 300 it would be viable as a second car: I can do a round-trip to Montreal (200 km) and have enough juice for some toodling around the city before heading home. Electricity is fairly cheap in Quebec.

Or at 200 km I could do it if my wife didn't require me to pry her cold dead hands off her steering wheel to borrow her car; I'd just use the gasser when I need to go to the city, and leave her the e-car as her commute is only 12 km.
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
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outside St Louis, MO
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There are just too many to list....
Changing the fluid in a manual transmission or automatic transmission is good for long term reliability.

Subaru CVT's, however, are fully sealed. When the fluid goes, it takes out the rest of the transmission and you need a new transmission replacement, which is not cheap.

Boy that is another one of those myths that just refuse to die. Subie's "Lineartronic" CVT has a check, drain, and fill procedure just like anything else. Nothing special or mystical about it. I've serviced a few of them already.
 

DPM

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^ yup. They were "sealed" as a warranty policy for the first year or two of production, failures were shipped back to the mothership for analysis.
 

oilhammer

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There are just too many to list....
I think there has been this trend to call any transmission that has no dipstick "sealed", and I for one have no idea why. They are all "sealed", otherwise fluid would be leaking out everywhere. Even the ones without dipsticks (and there are many of these) have a vent on them same as always.

The only think is, if there is no dipstick, there is simply a different method used to check their level. And to be honest, it is usually EASIER to check that way, because the dipsticks are often difficult to read. No guesswork with a check plug underneath: if fluid comes out, it's full. If it doesn't, it's low.
 

kjclow

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For most of us, the main problem is getting to that check plug.
 

oilhammer

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outside St Louis, MO
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There are just too many to list....
For most of us, the main problem is getting to that check plug.

Yep, getting to it while keeping the car level. I get that. The plug itself is generally very easy, no more difficult than the engine drain plug really on most cars and trucks.

But the good news is, the age of chronic seeping slushboxes that NEEDED frequent fluid top ups is long gone. Most modern autoboxes do very well at keeping their fluid inside, so generally all that is really needed is a quick visual inspection. Nothing leaking, then no need to worry about the level. Unless of course it was improperly serviced in the past. And of course, a very minor seepage over a long period of time can necessitate a check.

Thankfully, none of the various automatics that VAG employs (and there are quite a few of them) have not had much of any issues with seepage to the point that I'd be too worried.

And FWIW, manuals do not have dipsticks either. And unlike automatics, that will slip or flare or misbehave in some fashion when they are low, a manual will continue to work just fine until it breaks completely if it gets run low.
 

EddyKilowatt

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Other than maybe having a little less tolerance to neglect, the smaller displacement turbocharged engines so far have been holding up fine. I've not seen widespread problems with any of them from any manufacturers.
I think the powertrains (from the piston crown onward) have been pretty well debugged, and the turbo hardware too. I have the impression we're seeing first-generation issues with gasoline direct injection though, like intake valves crudding up like it was 1980 all over again... with oil rather than gas deposits this time around.
 

20IndigoBlue02

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I think the powertrains (from the piston crown onward) have been pretty well debugged, and the turbo hardware too. I have the impression we're seeing first-generation issues with gasoline direct injection though, like intake valves crudding up like it was 1980 all over again... with oil rather than gas deposits this time around.
Toyota is ahead of the curve, with their D4-S system when VW was introducing their FSI-turbo's to the US. Toyota's D4-S has the port-injection along with direct, and this was in 2006.

Their first generation was in the 90's, where they were retrofitting existing engines with it. Though Mitsubishi mainstreamed it earlier than Toyota in Japan.

A few years ago, with the 3rd gen ea888, Audi offered twin injection, but not in VW's US lineup of 3rd gen ea888 engines.
 

oilhammer

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outside St Louis, MO
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There are just too many to list....
Volkswagen had DI gassers in Europe for almost a decade before we saw any here, just like Japanese manufacturers had in Japan. There was a 1.6L 16 valve 4 cyl FSI Golf. But it sold poorly because what call was there for a fuel efficient gasoline engine in Europe that costs more when the base gas Golf (something we also never got) was so much less AND they had FAR more frugal diesel options?

Toyota's twin injection engines were originally more for power enhancement than anything else. That's how they were able to squeeze over 300hp from a non-turbo 3.5L V6. I PDI'd some of those cars when I worked at Lexus, the IS350. It was a pretty good running car, but the GR series of engines turned out to have a lot of major problems, especially early on.

VAG's current DI gas turbo engines in the 1.8L and 2.0L form we get here are designed with twin injection in mind, they just did not install it (at least not on our versions). The intake mold has the injector hole bungs and secondary fuel rail hold downs already molded in, along with the spot to hold the wire harness to the injectors.

The intake valve gunking is sort of all over the place. Some engines are worse than others, and some drivers seem to have habits or drive cycles that promote the problem more than others. I personally think a preventative approach of regular use of some sort of upper intake cleaning system (we use BG here, but there are other brands that work too) is a good idea. Because once it gets beyond a certain point, there seems to be no good way to get them clean again without removal of the intake manifold and physically cleaning the intake ports out. By hand. One at a time. VERY time consuming. Very messy. And a real pain in the butt.

We've also had some that broke a substantial chunk of carbon off all at once, went into the intake valve port, and held the valve open, causing piston contact. Since most (but not all) of these engines are multivalve units, their intake valves are very tiny, and set at an angle, which means they easily bend. :(
 

20IndigoBlue02

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the 3rd gen ea888's twin injection was designed to meet the ever increasingly strict Euro emission, iirc Euro 6, so it goes into direct injection sooner than Toyota's D4-S system. Audi twin injection used port for low loads only, and after that direct. D4-S used port for low & medium load, and direct only on high loads. Direct only on the 2.5L 4GR-FSE motor didn't make too much power for its size, just over 200. The 2GR does make just over 300 hp, but that's at full load, when it is on the direct only mode of the injection system.

VAG FSI was introduced in Europe in 2000, on a 1.4L engine.

VW in its patent application lists the method for reducing intake valve clogging, which includes a modified Italian tune-up and use of esters in the oil. Lower SAPS oil does slow down the formation of the deposits. Using heavy duty diesel oil, like Shell RT6 or CHevron Delo 400 LE (which the SAPS level was 1.0 ppm) did help my old Passat 2.0T (BPY) get to 100,000 miles in between cleanings.
 

oilhammer

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There are just too many to list....
The BPY for whatever reason was never as bad about gunking as the CCTA. etc. engines. Other than some pretty abysmal oil consumption, and some HPFP cam follower failures, the BPY was (is) a pretty good engine.

There may be a link between the cam/follower failure and constantly running low on a oil, too. Not to mention so many people using the wrong oil.

One of my customers has a 2007 GTI, and he bought it new, which was early on but already we knew about the BPY's appetite for oil. I gave him strict warnings about this, armed him with an extra 5L jug of oil after each service to take with him. And 200k+ miles later, it still runs like a top, and it still uses every bit of that extra 5L of 502.00 spec 5w40 between its 10k mile oil changes... same as it did when new. And I have never done a single thing to that engine besides spark plugs, coils (of course :rolleyes: ) and scheduled timing belts. That's it. Cam, follower, HPFP, etc. all original. It is starting to get some seepage at the rear chain cover, which is not a big deal to fix on the transverse applications... the longitudinal ones are a bit trickier.
 

20IndigoBlue02

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The valve cover failing on the BPY's is a major influence on oil consumption. THe valve cover has PCV passages.

I call BS on the cam follower still original on the 07 GTI. If you replaced the follower regularly (around the time when the DLC part wears out), you'll never have HPFP or camshaft issues, except when the "Thrust sensor" failed, which later became a TSB.

I had a thrust sensor failed on me, and the local dealership wanted to replace the entire camshaft and HPFP until I called BS on the technician. I asked the technician if he inspected the follower and camshaft, he said no, then 1/2 later hour came back and changed his tune to the sensor only.
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
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There are just too many to list....
Now I'm a liar? :rolleyes:

I am 100% certain it is all original. I am the only human that has ever touched anything under the hood of that car after it left the dealership, save for the owner's religious topping up of oil. I have LOTS of customers' cars I can say that about. :)

Many of the other BPYs that have come through here over the years blew up from running out of oil. :( I can't follow them all around.

This GTI does have an easy life though. It covers long highway distances mostly, rarely ever driven in any traffic, and certainly never abused. Only reason he even bought it over a TDI was that there were no new TDIs sold here that year, and his 1/4 million mile ALH (which was still running strong) was rear ended by a drunk and was not repairable. Not even close.
 
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PlaneCrazy

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The BPY for whatever reason was never as bad about gunking as the CCTA. etc. engines. Other than some pretty abysmal oil consumption, and some HPFP cam follower failures, the BPY was (is) a pretty good engine.

There may be a link between the cam/follower failure and constantly running low on a oil, too. Not to mention so many people using the wrong oil.

One of my customers has a 2007 GTI, and he bought it new, which was early on but already we knew about the BPY's appetite for oil. I gave him strict warnings about this, armed him with an extra 5L jug of oil after each service to take with him. And 200k+ miles later, it still runs like a top, and it still uses every bit of that extra 5L of 502.00 spec 5w40 between its 10k mile oil changes... same as it did when new. And I have never done a single thing to that engine besides spark plugs, coils (of course :rolleyes: ) and scheduled timing belts. That's it. Cam, follower, HPFP, etc. all original. It is starting to get some seepage at the rear chain cover, which is not a big deal to fix on the transverse applications... the longitudinal ones are a bit trickier.
I put 100k miles (160k km) on my 2007 Passat 2.0T wagon (6-mt). Never had issues with the cam follower, even after the extended warranty came out. I was religious though, about checking oil, and had a good supply of 502.00 in my garage. Almost reminds me of old radial piston aircraft engines; aircraft range was nearly as much limited by oil capacity as by fuel capacity.

I never cleaned the valve but I will say this, when I really put my foot into it like a tight merge onto a freeway or overtaking, it would lay a smokescreen that would make my B5.5 TDI blush. I was driving quite a bit in those days, mostly highway, mostly cruise control at 100 km/h (the speed limit). Never had issues so perhaps the occasional Italian tuneup helped.

The car was super efficient on the highway for its size; 6.4 L/100 km (albeit on super), which is 37 mpg. With the big 70L tank I've seen 1000 km on a tank on a road trip. It was probably one of my better cars over the years, and had plenty of get-up-and-go as well.
 

Owain@malonetuning

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Thank you Brian for the non stop knowledge and real world experience.

Speaking of high pressure fuel pump failures and soft camshafts... how about that freevalve tech progression?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3cFfM3r510&ab_channel=/DRIVE

Qoros, a Chinese manufacturer, is currently testing a camless motor in their 3-hatchback. Traditionally it's a port injected 1.6T 16V with 160HP/175lb-ft. Koenigsegg is claiming a ~45% power and torque increase, 15% fuel economy, and 35% fewer emissions (mostly due to cold start improvements). They currently have 150K/yr production and are well underway testing this system. Many companies have looked into this extensively but other than fiat we haven't really seen much in terms of weird valve designs in mass produced vehicles.

The valves can be controlled individually and infinitely, it has 8 inlet and 8 exhaust port.
- No need for a wastegate as 4 exhaust outlets don't enter the turbo, so those four valves can be opened more as needed
- No need for a throttle body
- No need for a cam/HPFP assembly
- The pre-cat converter can be removed, since the exhaust can be heated much faster and most pollution occurs during cold starts
- The entire engine assembly is approx 15kg lighter, 50mm shorter, 70mm shorter and narrower in this application.
- You could probably run a single drive belt
- Square valve profile race use
- Raised CR from 9 to 12:1
motors don't need to get any smaller, they need to get smarter first. Part of that is with simplicity, HPFP failures cost more than a mk4 tdi typically and walnut blasting isn't fun. Twin injection is a good start. Hopefully this will get a running shot against those dull hybrids. With VGTs and plasma ignition this should see 50+MPG easily, just a matter of getting the price down.
 
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tikal

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The BPY for whatever reason was never as bad about gunking as the CCTA. etc. engines. Other than some pretty abysmal oil consumption, and some HPFP cam follower failures, the BPY was (is) a pretty good engine.

There may be a link between the cam/follower failure and constantly running low on a oil, too. Not to mention so many people using the wrong oil.

One of my customers has a 2007 GTI, and he bought it new, which was early on but already we knew about the BPY's appetite for oil. I gave him strict warnings about this, armed him with an extra 5L jug of oil after each service to take with him. And 200k+ miles later, it still runs like a top, and it still uses every bit of that extra 5L of 502.00 spec 5w40 between its 10k mile oil changes... same as it did when new. And I have never done a single thing to that engine besides spark plugs, coils (of course :rolleyes: ) and scheduled timing belts. That's it. Cam, follower, HPFP, etc. all original. It is starting to get some seepage at the rear chain cover, which is not a big deal to fix on the transverse applications... the longitudinal ones are a bit trickier.
This is where the Renewable Lubricants oil would come handy (instead of VW 502):

http://renewablelube.com/files/8914/8977/5451/Bio-SynXtra_HD_Plus_SHP_SAE_5W40_Motor_Oil_LA.pdf

https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1173821#Post1173819
 
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