Posted on 06/08/2013 3:17:41 PM PDT by rickmichaels
I’ll be the first to admit that this, the third installment in Post Driving‘s ongoing fuel economy comparisons, is not original. Consumer Reports issued a press release some four months ago that decried the supposed fuel economy advantage of small turbochargers over the larger — typically V6 engines — that they are supposed to supplant.
(Excerpt) Read more at life.nationalpost.com ...
No one can beat my value.
$2700 Cavalier that gets 30mpg city and 35 mpg highway.
A hybrid might do better but you didn’t pay $2700 for it.
Heck, my dirt bike has only one jug and it makes 56 rwhp so I guess it's going to blow up any time.
hehe
Could never figure out why, when the wife and I would swap vehicles, whatever she drove would show at least 5 mpg less than when I drove it.
After a while, I figured it out. She regularly spends 20 minutes waiting in a drive-thru, and regularly spends 20 or more minutes eating or texting with engine idling.
My buddy has one of those with 200,000 miles.
It’s like a cockroach, not pretty but nearly impossible to kill.
mine too. when i drive with her i know why. she is a lead foot in the lower gears, doesnt coast to red lights or stop signs, doesn’t anticipate gas or less gas or coasting well.
Which proves he is right. Your dirt bike ain’t gonna go 200K between rebuilds now is it?
Best it can probably do is 10K if you are very, very lucky.
Todays water cooled 4 stroke dirt bikes don’t last long with their itty bitty cam chains as well as the virtually non existence piston skirts and very small stemmed intake and exhaust valves, low tension rings and vapor deposition cylinder walls.
All great for performance and very light weight but no longevity.
It has decent performance with a 5 speed. It’s a great short commuter. When I get through with it, the stereo will cost more than the car.
I bought it for my 16 year-old son but he said it was a chick car. So I gave him my Jeep Grand Cherokee. Now he pays for the gas.
It’s a two-stroke, actually. Still on original piston and rings from 1984. Few tens of hours, probably. Cast piston skirt might start to crack around 200 hours; so 200k — definitely not.
For short jaunts around town, I have a turbocharged tandem bicycle. Actually, it’s just me riding on the back with a taser. I tell my son he can ride up front and steer. Got it up to 30mph once when the battery was fresh and I hit him with it twice.
Man, you sound like me, ride antiques. Putting a piston in an old smoker is so easy compared to the new 4 strokes.
I ride and old YZ490, an IT200 and a RD400. Getting parts is getting tough though. Ebay is my best friend.
Oh, forgot, put a CR250R water cooled smoker on a shifter cart. That is a really bad boy there. Accelerates so hard ya better have some neck muscles to hold yer head up.
Yep, ‘80 IT250 I bought new and am ‘modding’ to this day; CR500 - ‘86 not ‘84 - referred to in the earlier comment (just got a compression release installed); ‘84 KTM 125 MX is actually the most fun rider in the stable with its ultra-light weight and case reed, and a few others like the ‘82 XL250R, 1650 miles, and Kawasaki KE100 550 miles I just re-did for my girl.
Actually, as I’m getting older along with the bikes, the 185 lb., 31 inch seat height KE is the most comfortable bike for me to ride offroad now. Stay on the gas, but stay on or above the seat even more important at our ages.
We have a kart track 3 miles away but a KT100 was all I ever drove. Yep, eBay saved searches are critical for things like mid-80s KTM water pump vanes.
What is the range of your LEAF (combined)?
Thanks
Ha I had a 97 Cherokee and despite my best efforts that thing struggled to get 15 mpg. My Caddy SRX gets 19-20 under the same driving cycle.
From my own experience, my 2.0L turbo 4 Escape achieves about 2-3 mpg better economy around town, and 1-2 mpg better on the highway than my 2003 Escape with the 3.0 V6 did (yes, I’m a data geek, and I do keep track of my mileage at every fillup - manually). And it has considerably more horsepower.
However, it doesn’t get what it’s rated to get on the highway, presumably because the EPA highway cycle is not based on people driving 5-7 mph over the speed limit at all times. However-2, my Honda routinely achieved 2-3 mpg higher mileage on the highway than it was rated. It was not a turbo 4, but it was a bit of a performance engine.
Personally, I’m satisfied with the mileage I’m getting, though I think that the turbos are struggling to get real-world mileage equal to that achieved on the EPA test. I think that the EPA test is not quite realistic, though it’s better than nothing.
I had a 1996 Cherokee Country with the 4.0 High Output inline 6 cylinder that easily got 24-26mpg on the highway as long as I kept it under 70mph and let the cruise control take over.
The great thing about that motor is that it's literally bulletproof. Change the oil, keep a clean air filter in it and give it a tune up every 60,000 miles and that motor will just keep going, and going, and going. I sold mine back in 2006 and have regretted it since. Sure wish Jeep would bring back the Jeep Cherokee (not that "new Cherokee that looks like a POS.)
Oddly, I'm around 23.5 city and 26-27 highway with my 2.0. But I have read of some people getting considerably lower mileage (like you are getting) on the Blue Oval forum. My city mileage exceeds the EPA rating, while my highway mileage doesn't meet the rating. But I think that the EPA test doesn't take into account that people like me drive about 75-77 mph in the highway, rather than the snail-like pace at which they test vehicles.
The new Escapes aren't much smaller or lighter than the previous version.
Yeah, that’s why newer turbo engines will do things like use twin sequential turbos or pair a smaller one and a larger one to try and beat the turbo lag. The single smaller turbo like my Eclipse had is better for performance but at the expense of dealing with the lag getting it spun up. Nowadays they can be engineered so the lag is quite minimal but I don’t know that it can be completely removed.
}:-)4
ROTFLMAO!! I thought your post was hilarious. My son, not as much.
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