Down-sized engines: How good is it?
Perhaps equally important, the N54 inline-six also significantly lowers the price of entry into a brand-new 7-series. The advantage is the 740 models’ weight distribution improves, too, with 50 percent over each axle versus the 750’s 51/49 front-to-rear allocation. From a report on blog.gasgoo.com titled “…downsized gasoline engine’s application in China” the market share of […]
Perhaps equally important, the N54 inline-six also significantly lowers the price of entry into a brand-new 7-series. The advantage is the 740 models’ weight distribution improves, too, with 50 percent over each axle versus the 750’s 51/49 front-to-rear allocation.
From a report on blog.gasgoo.com titled “…downsized gasoline engine’s application in China” the market share of passenger vehicles with engines of 1.5 liters and less should “reach more than 40 percent; that of passenger vehicles with engines of 1.0 liter and less to reach over 15 percent. With this encouragement on engine capacity of and below 1.5 liters, more automakers especially the joint ventures will seek more solutions including engine downsizing to win more market share.
In Nigeria that may not necessarily be the cases for a lot of motorist. From a conversation Abubakar Umar, with a user of the current Toyota Camry and a motor enthusiast believes very much in the traditional set up where bigger engines for more power than squizzing hugh power from a “small engine and wearing them out” as he said.
In addressing the issue of wearing out another motor enthusiast, Enobong Utuk argued that some have return to using iron cast block engine or in some cases combining the two. He says “the disadvantage of using aluminum engines with turbo chargers is it could deform the engine block perhaps it is a reason why VW are using the iron cast engines for the 1.4 TFSI which also appear even in the entry level VW Golf, 2008 Jetta and Passat.
Although in America, according to Car and Driver Magazine, many people feel that a proper luxury sedan needs a V-8—or more—up front, the N54 six moves this 4300-plus-pound luxury sedan well.
Though downsizing seems to be a good thing in the international market, for the Nigeria market the car dealers are often being careful on introducing high power down sized engines due to market responses cost of fuel in Nigeria and many other reasons.
In all this we can be sure of one thing the only people for whom these kind of cars wouldn’t work are the sort that would get an inferiority complex from having the smallest number on their trunklid. With high end torque churned out from 1600 to 4500 rpm, these engines can still toss your head back when asked and delivers plenty of oomph for merging and passing maneuvers.
The trick most manufacturers apply is use twin turbo chargers to avoid an initial lag or low end torque. Then there is the other problem which is Customer acceptance cost which is up to each buyer’s choice to make.