Diesels

The message from "DervMan" contains these words:

'93 and it's got a cat.

Saab developed a 'relaxed' 1.6L 225bhp engine with variable compression ratio, eliminating the necessity of a constant low CR to accommodate peak turbo power, hence maintaining efficiency at low loads. However, the project was shelved by GM.

I stand corrected! I had to endure 3 years of very reliable but painfully dull motoring with a non-turbo K reg Astra 1.7 Diesel, never again! I wouldn't have thought there'd still be a market for non-turbo Diesels these days, you live and learn!

I've never understood why people pay so much money for VW cars when there are decent alternatives for much less money.

Morse

Yes, but it won't have anything like the restrictive emissions funkiness that modern stuff has on it now (I was going to write, "crap" but y'all know what I mean)...

Which? readers, who see that a Golf, Polo, Fabia or Octavia is the best machine for them to have, but discover that they can't afford the 1.9 TDI

Stupidity?

That's what it is. They follow the herd because they dont know much about cars and want something that is supposedly reliable. My mate used to have a Polo, I could feel how dire the handling was and I was sitting in the passenger seat...

Eh? How so?

Or the Mercedes C320cdi - 0-62 6.9s, top speed 155mph, 47.9mpg. Just as irrelevant.

No if two muppets try to out accelerate each other away from the lights the ones that isnt in the 16.7sec 0-62 mobile is going to have the smile on his face. ;)

I feel have to stick up for Polos here. Coming from a "decent alternative for much less money"[1] we're much much happier with the Polo. For a start it's got through it's first MOT without costing 300 quid, and nothings fallen off. Also, compared to my Leon there's a definite improvement in build quality[2], and Seat use VW parts! Not great handling I can agree with though, however lets face it - this is the next to bottom spec model and handling isn't an issue when you're using the car to travel across Birmingham in rush hour....

It's all down to choice...

How long does a 2cv take to get to 60mph? In your race from the lights, I think the car with the 16.7seconds 0-60 time would probably win. I'm not sure if either driver would be smiling or not.

What was your point again?

Douglas Payne ( snipped-for-privacy@cheerful.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Official figure was about 29sec...

I think the NA XUD9 engine is evolved a bit and called DW8 now. It's being phased out this year (according to wikipedia) as it doesn't meet EuroIV.

Changeover from XU to DW must have been about 1998 as more than one parts website asks me whether it's an XU or a DW when I'm looking for bits.

AFAIK It's installed in many Berlingo and Partner vans and I remember driving a 206 with one in.

Douglas Payne ( snipped-for-privacy@cheerful.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Yes, and no.

The DW8 is the non-turbo version of the HDi - it's sort-of based on the old XUD but quite a chunk different.

As diesel engines go, the non turbo 1.7D fitted to Astras of that generation (we had an L reg one) was absolutely terrible. We had Peugeot diesels alongside it, none of them was particularly fiery but back to back there was no comparison.

More meaningful if you showed the respective BHP ratings.

The message from Douglas Payne contains these words:

You should have tried the 4-speed 1.6 diesel that preceeded it. Ugh.

Conor ( snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

'83 Golf 1.5d - 48bhp, 850kg '06 Golf SDi - 73bhp, 1400kg

'83 900 turbo - 143bhp, 1300kg '06 93 turbo - 175bhp, 1400kg

E21 323i - 143bhp, 1200kg E90 320i 2.2/6 - 170bhp, 1500kg

by which time the lights have changed