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Anyone know why a simple valve being blocked would result in a £1100 repair bill?
Daft money I know but thats what it can cost. On a 1.9tdi vauxhall for example, if the swirl flaps break, you need a new manifold, £££, usually a new egr too, £££. To do the job, you need to remove the timing belt and fuel pump and all the ancillerys around them. Then there's the gaskets and labour, £££.. soon adds up at a dealer.
It's pretty good though I'd go for an auto as the manual cen be a bit snatchy on pull away. Otherwise, car is smooth, economical and in normal guise, 180bhp so plenty powerful enough. For long term ownership, it has chain driven cams rather than the belt replacement job required on the 2.5L@ 80k (IIRC). That's an expensive job on the 2.5L.I had mine chipped though and there's loads of grunt whilst returning the mpg's above. I didn't fancy the 3.0L for the extra power as it only came in 4x4 mode and for 99.9999% of my driving, 4x4 is irrelevant.
cheers boblo. 🙂
Have a mondeo mk3 tdci 130 estate 2004. Pre 2005 cars use the ford puma engine. Chain driven cams no dpf fitted. Garrett turbo tested to 150k+. DMF clutch kits are amongst the cheapest to replace 500 quid approx. I was advised by a mate who runs a fleet of different cars to allow turbo to cool for a minute before turning off ignition and use decent quality fuel not cheap supermarket stuff. This is to protect the fuel pump from wear. Oil is changed every 10k or per year what ever comes first. Low sulphur fuel eats fuel pumps and wears injectors. A fuel pump failure will make everything else look cheap by comparison. On a brighter note just drive them and enjoy them!
? The Puma never had a diesel variant ??
1.4, 1.6 and 1.7 petrol (the latter being the Yamaha engine). The 1.4 was soon retired as it was pointless.
Not the little hatch, puma is also the code for the ford 2.0l tddi and tdci chain cam engine. Also known as the ZSD engine.
I have just bought an X reg golf SDI estate, and driving it back from Yorkshire at 80-85mph i got 402 miles out of £50 worth of fuel. Alot better than my 318i BMW used to do. Bonus! 😀
You managede to get an SDI Golf up to 85mph? I'm impressed.
My very heavy 4x4 does 30mpg, which is acceptable though not great. It's a diesel, and the characteristics of the engine suit the car - the petrol version I tried was gutless in comparison, which is probably why Land Rover stopped making it.
For all of the anti-diesel sentiment being expressed here, I'll say this: in the last 200k miles I've done, almost exclusively in diesels, I've not had a clutch failure, a DMF/DPF problem, a turbo failure...nothing.
What I have had is suspension problems (BMW 530D, but common to all E39 5-series), rear transmission issues (Volvo XC90, common across the range), and failed electronic parking brake (Passat, again unrelated to dieselness). I've also needed discs and pads - diesel cars tend to be heavier, so they wear the brakes more - and, on the Passat, shock absorbers. Probably unrelated to being a diesel, but the additional weight might have taken its toll.
Land Rover and Passat are each on around 140k at the moment, no plans to change them out for a while yet.
Unless you're doing a lot of miles, the price differential may not make it worth it, but given the distances the wife and I do, and the loads carried, diesel just makes more sense for us.
molgrips - 91mph flat out on the flat! 🙂
Well we can end the argument, cos on Thursday I pick up my new car and it runs on...
LPG
Win/Win
😀
My B5 tdi passat has done 254k miles on its original engine and gearbox. It never returns less than 55mpg and usually does 65mpg on my daily commute, the best ever brim and brim tank mpg being 85mpg over a 30 mile b road commute. In hard times I have run it on cheap pure veg oil. I see deisels being ragged through the gears everyday (as a pedestrian, try and cross the road near any busy roundabout or junction) in pointless drag races to 40 mph, the driver no doubt drunk on excess torque.
Well we can end the argument, cos on Thursday I pick up my new car and it runs on...LPG
Win/Win
For over a year I did a 160 miles commute to London everyday in an LPG converted 1.7 Vauxhall Combo (Corsa) van. A tank of fuel didn't last very long (MPG is awful) but because its cheap to buy it works out slightly better than petrol, but not as cheap as diesel. The prices have changed now though so its probably all different.
What car is it?
My B5 tdi passat has done 254k miles on its original engine and gearbox. It never returns less than 55mpg and usually does 65mpg on my daily commute
I had two... The first returned 45mpg average, sold it 10k later to get a higher horsepower version (90bhp in a 1.5 tonne saloon was just so weak!).
Bought a 110bhp estate, it averaged only 41mpg... For 3k miles, (from 121,000 to 124,000) before it blew up! Dropped a valve into a piston, blew the injector out the head, smashed the turbo to pieces etc. The car had a full VW Service History and only 2 owners...
When it comes to VW's, don't always believe the hype! Though to balance this out, my MK3 Golf TDi was the cheapest car I've ever had to run, did over 30k miles in that in 18 months and it never missed a beat...
For over a year I did a 160 miles commute to London everyday in an LPG converted 1.7 Vauxhall Combo (Corsa) van. A tank of fuel didn't last very long (MPG is awful) but because its cheap to buy it works out slightly better than petrol, but not as cheap as diesel. The prices have changed now though so its probably all different.What car is it?
Boring old Mondeo... Still, 38,000 miles, FSH, aircon and heated seats and the LPG tank, all for 900 quid can't be bad can it! Combined MPG is quoted at 36 for it (it's a 1.8 Zetec), so if it does 30mpg on LPG (to be expected) I'll still be a happy bunny as it's only 68.9p round here.
Sounds good mate. Doesn't seem that long ago that petrol was that price per litre!
Think LPG when I was using it was just under 40p/litre, thats gone up a fair chunk too.
Robbing bastards
LPGWin/Win
No.. petrol hybrid win/win!
No.. petrol hybrid lose/lose!
Diesels are more economical, produce less pollution in the manufacturing process, are faster, and have more torque.
Lolz, that old chesnut again.
Show me a decent sized automatic family car with 140bhp, 89g/km CO2 and very low NOx and I might be impressed. I'd definitely be surprised, mind 🙂
Bought a 110bhp estate, it averaged only 41mpg... For 3k miles, (from 121,000 to 124,000) before it blew up! Dropped a valve into a piston, blew the injector out the head, smashed the turbo to pieces etc. The car had a full VW Service History and only 2 owners
I must have bought the only good one, clearly
89g/km CO2 and very low NOx
Nowhere did I say anything about that.
automatic family car with 140bhp, 89g/km CO2 and very low NOx
What hybrid has that?
Sounds good mate. Doesn't seem that long ago that petrol was that price per litre!
I passed my test at 17 in 1997, petrol was cheaper than 68.9p per litre round here back then.
I remember absolutely brimming my 106's tank after letting it run just about dry, and I managed to squeeze all of £32 of petrol in it! And that £32 would last almost 400 miles, despite me caning the knackers off the little car everywhere!
I remember when I first saw LPG available for cars (probably a while after it was actually available) and being gobsmacked you could fuel a petrol engined car for 28.9p per litre!
automatic family car with 140bhp, 89g/km CO2 and very low NOxWhat hybrid has that?
Prius, last time I checked.
"1.4, 1.6 and 1.7 petrol (the latter being the Yamaha engine). The 1.4 was soon retired as it was pointless."
The 1.4 and 1.7 were all the same Yamaha engine block (not sure about the 1.6, in fact the smallest was the 1.25 (although not used in the Puma)
petrol hybrid co2 is heavily weighted by the urban figure (which is very high). On motorways, the prius is just a slippery-shaped 1.5 petrol, which doesn't have particularly shining results. If you drive on motorways a lot, a similar powered diesel (for instance, a golf dsg) would probably be more economical. if you drive in town, the hybrid has the edge
Best of both worlds is diesel hybrid. Pug have one in a big 4x4ish thing that puts out 200bhp and does <100g CO2. impressive.
On motorways, the prius is just a slippery-shaped 1.5 petrol, which doesn't have particularly shining results
Got evidence for that? Cos I have 80,000 miles of evidence 🙂
It's a lot more than just a slippery 1.5 petrol. Don't claim stuff you don't know about 🙂
Some stuff I remember reading:
- It's very slippery indeed, the slipperiest production car (at least it was, may have changed may not)
- Engine is a pseudo-Atkinson cycle which has a longer expansion stroke than compression, resulting in more recovered energy
- On previous US models it pumped hot coolant into a thermos to keep it warm
- Current engine has a coolant circuit that goes through the exhaust near the engine so it heats up really quickly to improve cold start economy.
- The engine has no drive belts - everything's an electric motor, so no parasitic drag
- The transmission whilst being like a CVT works completely differently, and can mimic a huge range of gears. Even in mine I cruise at less than 2krpm.
- Even on motorways it recovers energy going down hills and when lifting off. So not just like a normal petrol.
65-70mpg is normal for a new model Prius afaik, which is reasonably similar, perhaps a little more than a Bluemotion Passat, but it's petrol so has lower C02, burns more cleanly and no heavy oils need to be cracked to make the fuel.
Having said that I like the Pug - although it doens't need 200bhp and surely to goodness if they put the same powerplant in a smaller aero car it'd be more efficient still? I didn't think diesel hybrids were much of a goer because many of the advantages of diesel are mitigated by the hyrbid petrol system (pumping losses for instance) but they seem to have figured it out. Apart from the NOx emissions and so on.
Some stuff I remember reading:- It's very slippery indeed, the slipperiest production car (at least it was, may have changed may not)
- Engine is a pseudo-Atkinson cycle which has a longer expansion stroke than compression, resulting in more recovered energy
- On previous US models it pumped hot coolant into a thermos to keep it warm
- Current engine has a coolant circuit that goes through the exhaust near the engine so it heats up really quickly to improve cold start economy.
- The engine has no drive belts - everything's an electric motor, so no parasitic drag
- The transmission whilst being like a CVT works completely differently, and can mimic a huge range of gears. Even in mine I cruise at less than 2krpm.
- Even on motorways it recovers energy going down hills and when lifting off. So not just like a normal petrol.
So how much of this is a direct result of it being a hybrid and how much of it is just clever technology to further increase efficiency? (not that there is anything wrong with that).
Why can't most of that be applied to a 'normal' car? And what would the result be?
It can't be too hard to make a normal car as aerodynamic (so long as people will accept the shape), fit skinny tyres, recover heat/KE & use it effectively, rather than wasting it etc.
I wonder how many more mpg my Ibiza would manage if it had skinnier tyres and a more slippery form. It only sits at 1800rpm doing 70mph.
the idea of coolant is that, once the engine is up to temperature, it isn't kept warm, so this wouldn't help on a motorway driveIt's very slippery indeed, the slipperiest production car (at least it was, may have changed may not)
- Engine is a pseudo-Atkinson cycle which has a longer expansion stroke than compression, resulting in more recovered energy
- On previous US models it pumped hot coolant into a thermos to keep it warm
- Current engine has a coolant circuit that goes through the exhaust near the engine so it heats up really quickly to improve cold start economy.
again - useful for short jouneys, not great for long ones as the engine is already hot
but it does have much more drag on the altenator, as the alternator has to power all of the electric motors which drive the air con, pas pump, coolant pump and so on. The lack of belts is more a design feature of allowing the car to be run whilst the IC engine isn't, rather than an efficiency design in itself (converting motion to electricity then back to motion is a pretty wasteful process)- The engine has no drive belts - everything's an electric motor, so no parasitic drag
cvt can manage infinate gears. Sadly, its less efficient in its transmission of power than a regular gearbox, which is why its never caught on - the inefficiencies of the cvt outweigh the efficiency gains by running the engine at the optimum rpm. cvt cars have been around for years and years - the prius uses a different form of CVT to allow the hybrid drivetrain to run at an indipendant rpm to the IC engine
- The transmission whilst being like a CVT works completely differently, and can mimic a huge range of gears. Even in mine I cruise at less than 2krpm.
- Even on motorways it recovers energy going down hills and when lifting off. So not just like a normal petrol.there's very few (if any) motorways this is applicable in a prius, as the drag caused by the energy recovery reduces speed pretty quickly - so the amount of energy recovery on zero throttle is very low (early priuses were modified to reduce this drag (and the amount of power recovered) on zero throttle as people didn't like the way the car slowed down so much). The prius can only 'gain' power in a situation where a normal driver is using the brakes.this can be pretty much summed up by the fact that a prius can only do 76mpg extra-urban, wheras a volvo s40 (which looks, to my untrained eye, like a less slippery shape) can do 86mpg on the same test.
automatic family car with 140bhp, 89g/km CO2 and very low NOx
Prius, last time I checked.
LOL!
Try 76 bhp, 104 g/km, 0-60 in 10 months, and a top speed of a whopping 106mph!
VW Golf Bluemotion is quicker, better looking, less CO2, has 30 bhp more, a ton more torque, 10 mpg more efficient on the combined cycle, and cheaper tax.
LOL!Try 76 bhp, 104 g/km.
0-60 in 10 months, and a top speed of a whopping 106mph!
Golf Bluemotion is quicker, better looking, less CO2, has 30 bhp more, a ton more torque, 10 mpg more efficient on the combined cycle, and cheaper tax.
that is the old prius, not the latest one, and that bhp is only the IC engine, wheras on a hybrid car you really need to include the whole drivetrain (98bhp for the IC engine and 36 for the electric). the golf is 74mpg combined, which is higher than the prius, but you'll probably find it has less torque through the rev range, not that its really relevent to an automatic (as the prius is)
Err he is on about the 1.5
The interior of the new one is nice, very futuristic.
Try 76 bhp, 104 g/km, 0-60 in 10 months, and a top speed of a whopping 106mph!
Yeah.. as above check your facts before lolling.. 76bhp is indeed the petrol engine, all in it's about 110bhp ish from memory, bout the same as the Golf than which is it bigger. 0-62 is 10.9s for the Prius and 11.3s for the Golf so ya boo sucks. Worth noting that you always get the maximum hp when you boot it becaues of the CVT effect, unlike a car with gears where you are not always at max hp.
Also there semes to be some trouble getting the govt figures from the Golf, but I can verify that it's rather easy to get the govt figures from the Prius. In the summer, at any rate. Not really possible in the winter.
Btw why is a top speed of 106mph ever possibly a problem outside of Germany? Seriously, are you like 12 years old or something?
Btw why is a top speed of 106mph ever possibly a problem outside of Germany? Seriously, are you like 12 years old or something?
Typical Prius owner comment that one.
Reminds me of this though
Of course it's a Prius owner comment.. it's car designed for maximum economy. Would you slag off a road bike because it wasn't any good at Cwmcarn?
Actually, you probably would, if you thought it would score you a few points 😉
Really? I thought it was designed to be zero pollution in towns for the Californian market and to be a test bed for hybrid tech.it's car designed for maximum economy
A car designed for economy would not be anything like that - think modern 2cv instead
the prius is never zero emission - it'll only do a couple of miles on electric only mode and at fairly low speed. of course it is designed for economy, but with a level of compromise that toyota figured most people would accept. If you made it like a 2cv no-one would buy it, as they were rattly, slow and uncomfortable.
5lab - but they count as that for the californian regs IIRC
A modern 2cv - , light, economical engine, room for 4 adults - a 2cv would do massive mpg - a modern take on one would be very economical indeed without all the parasitic weight of modern cars
Maximum economy within the constraints of what consumers expect and want. Of course it could be more efficient but no-one would buy it so it'd not make money and not enough people would take it up for it to have an effect on global emissions.
They've sold loads, but also kick-started a lot more hybrid models from other manufs, particularly in the US. It may be a marginal improvement over a diesel in fuel and CO2 terms but people in the US are going from 25mpg to 45mpg which is significant.
TandemJeremy - Member
5lab - but they count as that for the californian regs IIRCA modern 2cv - , light, economical engine, room for 4 adults - a 2cv would do massive mpg - a modern take on one would be very economical indeed without all the parasitic weight of modern cars
That'd be the new Micra (K13) then? Clever engine (super charged, CVVT 3 cylinder using the miller cycle), light weight compared to its peers, just about enough room for adults. I think the safety regs have killed off the possibility of a mass produced, reasonably priced, light weight car so that's about as close as you'll get.
The miller/atkinson/whatever it's called thing is a great idea, cna't imagine why it's not used more. Got any links about that new micra? Is it a special eco job or just the normal one?
Diesel. Good for things beginning with 'T'
Tractors
Trucks
Trains
Tanks
Transits
Tug boats
Taxis
Not at all.
Turtles
Tuna
Tulips
And your list misses out
Towing
Torque
Terrific fuel economy.
Checked out that Micra.. interesting idea, I was thinking the small displacement/forced induction thing was a good idea. Plus they seem to have VVT deployed to switch between miller cycle and normal as needed.
However it's interesting to note that as small and clever as it is, it's still 10% less efficient than a Prius on the official tests. Toyota done a good job.