Somebody once told me: Once you’ve driven a more powerful car, you won’t turn back. I guess thats really quite true.
I’ve gone from my first car — a Nissan March (Micra in other countries) 1.0L to a new 1.5L Nissan and then to my current 2.0L BMW. I also used to drive my dad’s 2.4L Volvo when I first got my driving license. Power was never enough.
The feeling of a vehicle with power on the tap is hard to describe. Many who have not driven a more powerful car may not understand and relate power with the need for speed. Of course I’m not talking about a Ferrari or a Bugatti but a normal road vehicle with sufficient power pulls you away safely in situations when you need it. In general, my personal figure is at least 100hp/tonne or more.
I was in Melbourne a few years earlier where I rented a Holden SV6 3.6L V6 to drive up the Great Ocean Road. There were four of us and a boot full of luggages easily adding up to about 400 kilos but the car was still simply amazing to drive. It goes around the mountain roads effortlessly and merges with freeway traffic with ease.
I specifically remember an exit from a farm road to the main freeway where I had to make a right turn (RHD in AU — which means I had to go across one direction of traffic before merging with the other). There was no way I could have waited for the right time to get on the freeway if I had been driving a 1.6L Toyota as there was simply too much traffic going at 100kph on the freeway. I waited for several minutes and found an opportunity where there was a gap in the traffic caused by a slow moving truck. I simply got on the gas and the car went right off and made the turn to merge with the traffic.
I’ve had the opportunity to drive serveral new cars recently, namely the Audi A4 1.8T, VW Scirocco 1.4T, VW Polo 1.2T, Mini Cooper S 1.6T and the BMW 320i (F30) 2.0T. These are all amazing cars with turbocharged engines and they have loads of torque almost immediately off idle and are such a joy to drive even in our city traffic. In my opinion, there’s no reason not to consider these modern TC engines over the NA ones except for long-term reliability.
Given the power improvements AND fuel economy, these turbo engines will be the future until a more efficient energy source after fossil fuel is found. At this point we have squeezed almost every bit of energy from gasoline and diesel. Hybrid or pure EV cars aren’t very practical yet IMHO. The need to wait a considerable amount of time to charge a battery makes it pointless. Some may argue: that’s nature and nature takes time to regenate (just like land for growing crops), but I am not at all convinced that electrical power generation is efficient given that most parts of the world still rely on some form of fossil fuel for electrical energy and the carbon footprint of setting up the entire electrical distribution infrastructure isn’t likely “CO2 friendly” either.
Speaking of long-term reliability, modern NA engines are made of lightweight aluminium or magnesium alloys and they tend to give way under stress and heat. Weight plays a critical part in fuel economy since basic physics defines Force = Mass x Acceleration. There’s only so much force a gallon of fuel can provide and apart from reducing any frictional losses, the next step is to reduce the weight (mass) of a car. The engine is sometimes the heaviest thing in a car after the passengers (LOL) so auto manufactuers do put considable effort into reducing weight.
The good news is that some of these modern TC engine blocks (especially VW/Audi) are still made from traditional cast iron and that might help them last longer. I am not entirely sure at this point but it seems that the BMW N20 2.0 TC engine found in 20i and 28i models of 2012 BMW vehicles (possibly also Mini Cooper S “Prince” engine) seem to be made of aluminium alloy. If that’s the case then that may be bad news given the history of the aluminium N46 engines developing gasket leaks past 60,000 kms.
Nevertheless, most people don’t really keep their car past 5 years so auto manufacturers don’t emphasize on long term reliability like they used to in the good old 80s. Long term reliability is quite different from short term reliability. A simple example would be a transmission that could withstand loads of torque (short term) but rusts and leaks after some time (long term).
Sometimes I wonder if all the talk about green technology gets defeated by consumerism.
That said, one of my dream car is an old 1987+ BMW E30 320i. If I had time and money, I would almost certainly buy one and have it nicely done up. Unfortunately the car would be frowned upon by my government and I will be slapped with a 50% increase in annual road tax. Given the current COE prices, looks like I may never get to buy one unless maybe… I move out!