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The operating conditions for over the road diesels is extremely different than daily driver cars. Those diesel trucks run hour after hour in a somewhat narrow rpm range while the rice rockets run from idle to 6,000+ rpms from red light to red light. And it is my understanding that the most significant wear on a turbo charger is when the engine is shut down and the turbine is spinning at upwards of 100,000 rpms with no oil pressure and the housing is glowing red. The multifueler engines on 6x6 military trucks had a plaque on the dash instructing that the engine must be allowed to idle for up to a minute to allow the turbine to slow before shutting them down. Do any turbo charged automobiles have similar instructions on the dash?
@“Rod Knox” I have a customer with a WRX. It has an aftermarket shut-down timer installed, meaning that when you turn the key off, shut the door and walk away the car is still running for 30 seconds. Kind of disconcerting the first time you experience it.
Who makes such a thing @asemaster? I would like to see the sales pitch used to sell that device.
I don’t know @“Rod Knox” If I remember to ask next time the car is in I will.
I don’t know that you’d need much of a sales pitch to sell something like that, especially to an enthusiast. You just said earlier that there were decals in trucks reminding the driver to allow enough idle time for the turbo to wind down before shut-off. This device does that without you thinking about it.
I think you can buy a device that will keep the turbo bearings oiled till they stop turning after shutdown,most savvy heavyduty diesel enthusiasts or owners ,know to let the turbo slow down before shutting off the engine(not a problem with a STS turbo setup)
Google ‘Turbo oiler’ and you’ll find oil add-on tanks that keep oil going to the turbo for some period after shut down. Summit sells some for about $225, described as:
"These Canton Racing accusump turbo after oilers are designed to solve the main cause of turbo wear and failure by supplying a pressurized discharge of oil to the hot turbo bearings during turbo spool-down. This oil will lubricate and cool the bearings and prevent coke buildup (which limits oil flow). The oilers are manufactured with the same design features and to the same high standards as all Canton Racing accusumps. A piston separates the oil side from the air pressure side, which allows them to be mounted in any position and permits an air precharge. With a precharge, all of the oil is discharged under pressure for positive oiling, and no oil is diverted from the engine until pressure is established on restart. "
I admit, I didn’t get the WRX for fuel economy…and I’d flog it on occasion…but the thing was, it got SUCH poor economy, regardless of how it was driven. I since learned that, you can design a turbo for immediate response, or design it for efficiency, but it’s hard to design for both simultaneously! (Lag or fuel hog: pick your poison.) That’s not to get into variable vane geometry, i.e. using technology to have your cake and eat it, too.
It was an education for somebody accustomed to basing FE on displacment. A SBC (all 5.7L!) probably would’ve got equivalent economy in such a light vehicle.
@meanjoe75fan That’s pretty bad. My Mustang with a supercharged 4.6L V8 and 3.73 gears gears gets around 18 MPG just driving back and forth from work, it’s only a about 5 mile trip each way on two way streets with only one stop light and two stop signs to contend with. On the highway thrift reaches upwards of 23-24 MPG.
Funnily enough when I was deciding on what car to get back when I first got the Mustang, the WRX was a close 2nd. It was the more practical car, with 4 doors and AWD, but the mechanical complexity scared me away, just looking at what it took to have a new clutch installed looked daunting to me. Since I was buying used, I figured that if I ended up on the hook for any repairs the previous owner had left the car with the Mustang was going to be cheaper to fix.
Anyway, I do like the WRX, the newer models are reputed to have less turbo lag than the early U.S. spec models.
I think the latest generation of turbo’d engines, sensibly driven, will last just fine. My 4 year old 1.4L turbo just rolled past 140,000, and it’s not going through oil, and starts immediately. I mean that. I turn the key, hold it for a half second, it’s running. I fully intend to take this car to 300,000. Then, after that, who knows? I’ll bet you that in another 5 years, I’ll come back and inform you guys that although the engine’s running fine, the body’s starting to rust out.
You guys are making me look like I’ve been living under a rock today. My outdated charge rate and total ignorance on turbo technology plus not noticing that a blown instrument panel fuse would cause the odd issue with the dimmer. Hopefully a few old carburetor problems will show up and I can redeem myself.
Re those turbos, if a head gasket blows it will likely take the turbo out. My guess is the seals don’t deal with steam and antifreeze all that well and when reassembled and fired up oil will blow out into the intake and exhaust and the turbo won’t spin. After 2 really unhappy customers I refused to take on those jobs.
I’m in the camp that’s more worried about the CVT. They’re a great idea but 10yr ago when I bought my current car they were fairly new and a lot of CVTs were grenading. Turbos have been a reasonablely sorted mainstream technology for a couple decades at least. Of course a lot of companies known for reliability are trusting their reputations to CVT so I’m probably just paranoid
I drove the new 2016 civic with the CVT and 1.5t its fun to drive and looks great. I personally am inclined to wait for a manual option with the 1.5T. I’m assuming that will be the Si coming in March.
If this civic makes you nervous and you enjoy driving buy a Mazda 3. If the concept of “enjoy driving” is beyond your comprehension buy a Corolla.
Any device that increases the temperature, pressure, and complexity of an engine will almost, by definition, increase the stress and therefore the wear. It’s probably just one part of the durability pie chart but doesn’t seem likely to help, although I haven’t seen any hard data on relative engine life, especially in cold weather (which adds its own element of stress to a car). You will find plenty of anecdotal data, though (for example, we had a turbodiesel that ran without any mechanical failures for 230,000 miles).
As far as driving a tubo powered Honda is concerned, I would not fret at all, if I were the original owner. The motor imo, will be quite reliable. But,if you drive the car hard with the turbo power coming on more regularly, it could be a problem for the subsequent owners. On diesels, there is no problem, simply because the entire engine is often designed with a turbo in mind. If the Same is true for Honda, it should be equal reliable. I would check repair frequency over five years for a suspect new motor with a turbo. If this combo t hasn’t been out 3-5 years, I would not buy it.
I just purchased a new RAV4 for my wife. I stayed away from the Honda turbo and CVT transmission. Yeah I know most cars are going to a smaller displacement with turbo engine to meet cafe standards but I am a fan old proven technology. We will put 40K miles per year on the car and I wanted long term low maintenance. The idea of the smaller engine with turbo is simple. You don’t need max HP all the time so you have the small displacement engine that is easier on gas while idling or cruising down the road and the turbo kicks in when you need the extra boost. This is different than the larger engine with no turbo. You are running the larger engine full time when you don’t need all that power and you are essentially wasting fuel while idling.
The CVT transmission sounds like a great idea but I often pull a small 4x6 trailer with 300-800# behind my camry and now Rav4. I figured I would opt for the old school proven gears in a transmission.
On a side note, diesels have been running turbos for decades. Pretty much every semi truck has a turbo on it and I am sure that they last many miles before they need serviced. I would also like to note that a diesel engine is built substantially heavier duty to withstand the high compression than a gasoline engine. They are two completely different animals and if I was buying a diesel pickup truck I would want the turbo.
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As I recall, Buick offered a turbocharged V6 back in the early '60s. The industry had very little understanding of that particular technology at the time, so they got a bad reputation in general because those engines tended to grenade in very short order. This was still the case more recently, but that was partly due to the users lack of understanding about how to care for them. The issue is the turbocharger can spin at up to 100,000 rpm, which creates a great deal of heat. The proper care and feeding of a turbocharged car is to keep your foot out of it (and hence the turbocharging not providing very much boost) until the engine is fully warmed up. Also, when it comes time to park it, the engine should be allowed to idle for 30-60 seconds to give the turbocharger bearings a chance to cool down. If this isn’t done, the lubricating oil cokes up and the bearings get shot. I don’t know if all cars to this now, but I knew a guy with a Subaru WRX and the car automatically kept idling after the key was turned to the off position so this cooling could occur.
As for the mileage, a turbocharged engine is a high performance engine, and as with all cars with a high performance engine, a lot of drivers tend to overuse the loud pedal, which always brings the mileage down. If you don’t hot rod around town, you should get the mileage based upon the size of the engine rather than on the maximum horsepower.
Personally, I’d shy away from a turbocharged engine because I’m basically an old fogey from the more cubic inches generation and I can’t make the leap that a 3.5 liter (215 cubic inches) engine putting out 365 horsepower to push a 4,400 pound vehicle (i.e., the Ford F150 pickup) will last. But then materials technology has improved tremendously in the last 40 years to my concerns may well be unwarranted.
I am generally change averse and want to keep thinks simple esp when it is on my dime. But, on the other hand I know the number of engines with turbo’s on them nowadays is much more than what it was 10 or 20 years ago. Knowing how much the general public knows about cars and the maintenance and the fact that we don’t have a few hundred turbo cars on tow trucks, I am going to guess that they have gotten pretty reliable.
I think, one way or another I might have to buy a car with a turbo engine pretty soon. If you exclude direct injection, CVT/dual clutch & turbo from your list, car shopping would be somewhat difficult.
“Turbo” or "turbocharged engine, means that the engine employs a device called a turbocharger. A turbocharger is an add-on part that uses recycled exhaust gases to increase power.
The turbocharger on a car applies a very similar principle to a piston engine. It uses the exhaust gas to drive a turbine. This spins an air compressor that pushes extra air (and oxygen) into the cylinders, allowing them to burn more fuel each second.
Info on turbos from a 2016 U.S. News and World Report article:
“Reliability
Ford Motor Company
Older turbocharged engines developed a reputation as mechanical time bombs. Turbos spin at hundreds of thousands of rpm, and bearings often failed. Today, automakers have perfected the oiling systems that keep turbochargers going for hundreds of thousands of miles.
Older turbos made so much power that they frequently caused problems with other parts of the car. Transmissions would fail, brakes would need replacements more often, and engines would overheat.
These problems haven’t cropped up with smaller turbochargers on smaller engines. Automakers seem to have learned their lessons from older turbos.
Today’s turbocharged engines are much more reliable, and it’s rare to have major problems with a modern engine, whether it’s turbocharged or not.”
Todd , not really breaking news.
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