Turbo diesels

StillGoing

I've looked at most diesel SUVs lately as I'm due a replacement car. The Lexus RX400h hybrid, which I was previously intent on has too many issues and from what I can work out, the hybrid is next to worthless. The Volvo D5 XC90 will present you with a massive bill at 65k miles more times than not due to transmission failure over a sleeve part that costs around £4.00. A Range Rover is just too unreliable. The BMW X5 3.0 TDi comes with barely anything as standard. The Landcruiser and the Mitsubishis are owned by people who like to knock your door and enquire whether you want your driveway doing. The Audi Q5 3.0 TDi is nice but too expensive, which has left me looking at the VW Touareg 3.0 TDI V6 Mk II. Not found any issues with the engine yet, but I have found there have been electrical niggles.

Diesels haven't done me any harm yet, but I think it's important to buy in a manufacturer's warranty.

rake

something to bear in mind, a faulty turbo, fuel system, egr valve,particulate filter will prevent the car from running but a dual mass failwheel can take out the whole gearbox

nwallace

rake wrote:

http://www.parkers.co.uk/News/Motoring- ... alculator/
that assumes nothing breaks down with a massive repair bill.
take this axample and add £1500 pound for the recon turbo on the cheap, it about doubles the excess cost and roughly doubles all of those break even mileages. not good for light useage savings.

Who is daft enough to buy a new car though?

And if you have a small 1L to 1.5L Turbo petrol engine, which is where most manufacturers are looking now for improving their petrol engines?

Yeah modern diseasels have stuff on them that are expensive to fix when they break that petrol engines don't have, but what I don't like about them is having to change gear every other second while accelerating, much easier in a petrol 2 to 6 krpm going 2nd-4th-6th, or even just 3rd to 6th.

Stoo48

700-750hp!!!!! maybe if I join 3 of them up together, a Cummins puts out 285hp per engine on a good day or if our Depot haven't got their grbby mitts on them.

Trust me they are 700 or 750hp at 19L. If they are only putting out 285hp they would never have been fitted to trains. A 2L turbo deisel puts out 145ish hp to put in into perspective.

For the record I'm very close to the product under discussion.....

verylonglegs

nwallace wrote:

Who is daft enough to buy a new car though?

Personally I'd never shell out for a brand new car but I wouldn't knock those that do either, someone has to be buying new in order for the rest of us to get the second hand bargains.

Bobbinogs

Yepp, echo that ^^^. Happy for folks to enjoy speccing their perfect car and getting the loveliness of the new (nice smell, gadgets that work rather "features", i.e., things that don't) and then happy for me to buy off them with the dent in depreciation already done.

StillGoing

nwallace wrote:

rake wrote:

Yeah modern diseasels have stuff on them that are expensive to fix when they break that petrol engines don't have, but what I don't like about them is having to change gear every other second while accelerating, much easier in a petrol 2 to 6 krpm going 2nd-4th-6th, or even just 3rd to 6th.

Not if you have an auto box. No big car should have a manual gearbox. Manuals are for sporty rear wheel drive cars. A big exec or SUV with a manual box is going to lose value quicker than an auto simply because people don't want the hassle of changing gear every couple of seconds..

nwallace

Autos are horrible to drive though, kill performance and fuel economy.
And I certainly wouldn't want an autobox on an SUV, hopeless off road.

mattshrops

philthy3 wrote:

Not if you have an auto box. No big car should have a manual gearbox. Manuals are for sporty rear wheel drive cars. A big exec or SUV with a manual box is going to lose value quicker than an auto simply because people don't want the hassle of changing gear every couple of seconds..

are you sure youre not from the us? ooh i had to move my arm?wtf?? :shock:

markos1963

Stoo48 wrote:

700-750hp!!!!! maybe if I join 3 of them up together, a Cummins puts out 285hp per engine on a good day or if our Depot haven't got their grbby mitts on them.

Trust me they are 700 or 750hp at 19L. If they are only putting out 285hp they would never have been fitted to trains. A 2L turbo deisel puts out 145ish hp to put in into perspective.

For the record I'm very close to the product under discussion.....

Perhaps we have a slight misunderstanding going on here? The Cummins I'm talking about is the one fitted to my class 15x trains not the ones fitted to the much nippier diesels introduced in recent years. Our class 170's have Merc diesels fitted that are rated at 450bhp and they are far quicker than the 15x's

Clank

nwallace wrote:

Autos are horrible to drive though, kill performance and fuel economy.
And I certainly wouldn't want an autobox on an SUV, hopeless off road.

I don't like driving autos, but I've got to argue against many of your points there, 'fraid to say.

Luxury cars with 7-8spd auto boxes are more efficient than their manual counterparts would be (if such were available) offering more gears, virtually slip free torque convertors and mappings that better balance driver demand and engine output). Never under-estimate the value of taking the driver out of the equation if you're looking for fuel economy! Thats ZFs, Voiths and Getrags view on the subject, anyhoo. And MB, BMW, JLR, VAG.............

And off-road, the ability to maintain drive whilst changing gear can be invaluable. The challenge boys love autos, and the racers loved autos until sequentials became viable.

The only thing counting against autos is the damned weight and cost.

.....and the fact that folk like I don't like driving them :?

dilemna

markos1963 wrote:

Stoo48 wrote:

700-750hp!!!!! maybe if I join 3 of them up together, a Cummins puts out 285hp per engine on a good day or if our Depot haven't got their grbby mitts on them.

Trust me they are 700 or 750hp at 19L. If they are only putting out 285hp they would never have been fitted to trains. A 2L turbo deisel puts out 145ish hp to put in into perspective.

For the record I'm very close to the product under discussion.....

Perhaps we have a slight misunderstanding going on here? The Cummins I'm talking about is the one fitted to my class 15x trains not the ones fitted to the much nippier diesels introduced in recent years. Our class 170's have Merc diesels fitted that are rated at 450bhp and they are far quicker than the 15x's

We have a few trainspotters on this thread !

markos1963

dilemna wrote:

markos1963 wrote:

Stoo48 wrote:

700-750hp!!!!! maybe if I join 3 of them up together, a Cummins puts out 285hp per engine on a good day or if our Depot haven't got their grbby mitts on them.

Trust me they are 700 or 750hp at 19L. If they are only putting out 285hp they would never have been fitted to trains. A 2L turbo deisel puts out 145ish hp to put in into perspective.

For the record I'm very close to the product under discussion.....

Perhaps we have a slight misunderstanding going on here? The Cummins I'm talking about is the one fitted to my class 15x trains not the ones fitted to the much nippier diesels introduced in recent years. Our class 170's have Merc diesels fitted that are rated at 450bhp and they are far quicker than the 15x's

We have a few trainspotters on this thread !

HOW DARE YOU!!!! I'll have you know I have NEVER been a ned! :evil:

nwallace

markos1963 wrote:

HOW DARE YOU!!!! I'll have you know I have NEVER been a ned! :evil:

Must be a Gadgie then...
Any more Dundonians here?

pneumatic

Are you sure you really need that new turbo unit??

I drove my SAAB in "limp home mode" for three years (including two trips to the south of France (to watch the Tour, naturellement!). I am the kind of car owner who regards washing the thing as unnecessary hassle, so I just ignored the engine warning light.

Eventually, my local mechanic ordered me a new EGR valve for three hundred quid and we were back in business. He said that if I had done something about it sooner, he could have just cleaned the valve rather than had to replace it.

He warns me off supermarket diesel and sells me bottles of fuel cleaner from time to time. Seems to do the trick and keep the cycling support vehicle (for that is its function) going ok towards 100k miles on the clock.

Stoo48

I'm not a nerd either, well not for trains.....

If your talking Italian road bikes or big diesel engines though, thats a different matter!

I guess we were talking at cross purposes, I think the engine your referring to is the N14, I was refering to the K19.

There are years of differences between both these engines in terms of power, torque, relative economy and refinement.

StillGoing

mattshrops wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

Not if you have an auto box. No big car should have a manual gearbox. Manuals are for sporty rear wheel drive cars. A big exec or SUV with a manual box is going to lose value quicker than an auto simply because people don't want the hassle of changing gear every couple of seconds..

are you sure youre not from the us? ooh i had to move my arm?wtf?? :shock:

Having owned a few luxury cars and having friends who are sales directors etc in the car business, I'm fully aware of what loses value. A company DIrector doesn't want to be messing around with gear changes when he/she is gliding along in comfort in their SL600, CLS, S8 etc. Look at any used luxury car and you'll see the manual versions don't command as much money as the autos. People don't want them. Most auto boxes on luxury cars and SUVs these days are Tiptronic/Geartronic etc meaning at the flick of the lever you effectively have a manual box if the desire ever takes you.

Now a driver's car with rear wheel drive like a BMW M5/M3 etc demands that you have a manual box.

nwallace

Clank wrote:

nwallace wrote:

Luxury cars with 7-8spd auto boxes are more efficient than their manual counterparts would be (if such were available) offering more gears, virtually slip free torque convertors and mappings that better balance driver demand and engine output). Never under-estimate the value of taking the driver out of the equation if you're looking for fuel economy! Thats ZFs, Voiths and Getrags view on the subject, anyhoo. And MB, BMW, JLR, VAG.............

But do they still try and be in the highest gear possible?
Or is that long gone?

Absolutely horrible barrelling into a circle at 70 in a 3-speed SAAB 900 and realising it isn't going to drop you into 2nd a tad too late.

Clank

Thankfully long gone. Everything now tries to keep the engine working at an opitmum speed for emissions.

Best thing about older autos was being able to force the damn gear for it, for just those instances you're talking about! Of course, the downside now is that there is no hard connection to the gearbox - it's all electronic, so you can waggle the lever and try and overide it, but if the computor says 'no'.........

Someone mentioned the Ford TDci dual mass flywheel earlier on. Parts for the job are about 500 quid. A car-savvy colleague just spent a weekend under his Mondeo doing it.

richard205

Honda civic diesel gets (well im getting 59.7mpg) around 550-580 a tank (50litres) has a EGR but the UK spec one doesnt have the DPF. Which frankly im glad about. Someone at work had a brera and was always moaning about it going into 'cleaning mode'

Dont want to think about the dual mass flywheel replacement, have heard its a £950 part on its own!

Has a fair bit of poke to be fair, and yes it does make for a more relaxing drive at 17-1900 rpm, rather than 3000rpm plus.

Hopefully mine wont go bang, as the turbo if that needs replacing wont be cheap, agree with previous comment about the EGR, as this for the civic is a known issue.

dilemna

iirc doesn't a Dual Mass Flywheel act as a damper to supposedly make gear changes smoother and reduce clutch wear???

Didn't VW 1.8Ts suffer badly with dual mass flywheel failures at one point?

One way to keep injectors clean is to use Miller's additive which in turn reduces soot which doesn't cause the EGR to get bunged up so much.

Also I believe a faulty or bunged up MAF can make the car feel as if the turbo isn't working. Fairly simple to replace, a lot cheaper than a turbo but still £150. I guess you will have checked it is working fine before condemning the turbo? A diagnostic test will show if the MAF is not working.

I don't think diesel engines are any more expensive or troublesome to maintain than petrol engines. If anything they are much easier tbh - no spark plugs, well glow plugs, but these last for years. They are pretty simple really.

StillGoing

Clank wrote:

Best thing about older autos was being able to force the damn gear for it, for just those instances you're talking about! Of course, the downside now is that there is no hard connection to the gearbox - it's all electronic, so you can waggle the lever and try and overide it, but if the computor says 'no'.........

That's not true with tiptronic or geartronic devices. I know in my current car with geartronic, by pushing forward or backward on the lever I can select any gear I want. A box with no manual overide option will be limited by the cars management system but that's going to be on cheaper cars that probably don't need an auto box in the first place.

bompington

nwallace wrote:

...barrelling into a circle...

Think you just lost 98% of readers there

corona

Is it only Dundonians that use the word circle in this context? I have never heard anyone else use it, and every Dundonian I ever met does.

Clank

philthy3 wrote:

That's not true with tiptronic or geartronic devices. I know in my current car with geartronic, by pushing forward or backward on the lever I can select any gear I want. A box with no manual overide option will be limited by the cars management system but that's going to be on cheaper cars that probably don't need an auto box in the first place.

'Fraid it's still true for many (but not all, as yet) of the tippy style 'quasi-sequential' boxes, but good point. The electronics can say 'no' as the box actuation is still entirely electronic (the ECU will be in intimate communitcation with the gearbox controller so it knows to dip revs etc as the system actuates).

Having said that, give it 10 years and 'true' manual boxes will be rendered pointless or simply prohibited by emissions requirements and drive types (so I guess I'd better start getting used to them!).

snailracer

^^
I'm sure the modchippers can - for a price - reprogram your automatic gearbox to throw in the odd mis-timed, crunching shift and over/under rev the engine, for that nostalgic "manual" experience :P