HDI Remaps

No, because the technology would be totally outdated, inefficient and more polluting than it needed to be. Overengineering is wasteful, in both fuel efficiency and raw material usage.

We'll have to agree to disagree then :)

Because if you only had 60hp to get to 70 in a 2 ton BMW you'd be waiting weeks and it'd be dangerous to drive?

I'd venture towards the detuned TBH, looking at the modern minibuses and the oldschool ones ive driven, the oldschool ones are still going (if rattling a bit) even when the newer ones have been in for engine repairs. Just my experience though.

The tuning of the EFI has by far the biggest difference in the fuel economy, but the cars you're quoting are not really a good example because both are inline 6s, ones a 2.5 and ones a 2.8 - theres a gnats ass of difference in size, no difference in number of cyls, and 20bhp extra power from the 300cc, and approx 2mpg economy loss.

I do admit you can go too far the other way though, the 318 is an underpowered 4cyl that ends up rattling itself to death trying to lug the bloated body around.

Most budget end cars i see on the road that are starting to lose sills and get a little feathery round the edges by 5 years. Ive even seen a few 01/02 5 series BMWs and '03 S-type jags blistering at the arches. Compare that to my old peugeot that didnt have any rust on it at 15 years.

Hmm. On the other hand if a car is engineered such that things simply don't wear out this side of a track day and you can go on using it for fifty years without needing to replace much, isn't that a *positive* contribution? Or are you saying that the overall effect for say fifty years with say five vehicles, holding on to each one for five years, is better?

Or seventeen cars, each replaced after three years?

I'm having this discussion with work because they tell me I need to put a "please consider the environment before printing this email" signature on email, I say, that's hypocritical when half the board get a new V6 / V8 powered machine every two years and we are based in such a backwards location that using the trains is difficult for almost everybody.

Yay! We agree on something! :-p

Then... drive slower?

Hmm. It's difficult to assess here because I suspect it's electrics rather than mechanicals, if you see what I mean. Old minibusses have engine technology from the stone age, but they keep on going.

I'm undecided. We had two petrol Transit vans at the dairy where I worked as a lad. One was a 1.6, the other was a 2.0. The 1.6 was dog slow, the

2.0 appreciably quicker, neither was in good condition though. The 1.6 was typically driven flat out to make any progress and the 2.0 driven flat out just because it was a works van, if you see what I mean...

I picked those two for a reason because they're very similar. The 2.8 is

112% the size of the 2.5 so all things being equal it should use 112% of the fuel under like for like conditions. Of course all things most certainly are not like for like...

Other examples might include a good chunk of family sized cars with four cylinder petrol engines. One of our consultants has a thing for the Alfa Romeo 156 and looked at the petrols in February 'cos the leasing agent had knocked the prices down (I tried to persuade him the way of the JTD was forwards). The 2006 range had a 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0. The paper consumption figures are ~34, ~33 and ~32 as I remember. Doug said that the 2.0 wee'd all over the 1.8 on the road, used the same amount of fuel but sat in a higher CO2 band so that was the one he went with.

The best six cylinder example I can think of in recent years is the Jaguar X-Type, where the 2.1, 2.5 and 3.0 have something like 31, 30 and 28 to the gallon as official figures with power from 155 through to 230 odd. Real world consumption, there's reputed to be sod all between them for the majority of drivers.

Or the 518i, the most popular 5-series, too.

Really, you need to be comparing the owners, though. I do understand what you mean, some of the '04 BMWs we have at the office are tatty at best. Unkempt, ill-cared for examples, but note the diesels are quicker than the M3 according to own driver. :p

Thats a very good point, and a side id not looked at it from. The amount of extra energy and waste used to make a NEW car probably vastly outweighs the extra polution an old car makes over a new one. So ideally we'd be figuring out ways to repair and improve long-lasting overengineered old cars. But that never happens because everyone wants a new car

Yes that is mad. Though there have been calculations done recently in the UK that show that most trains in our lovely country produce masses more polution per person due to still travelling during off-peak times, nearly empty, so IMO public transport is not the future.

First time for everything :)

You'd have to slow everyone down, accelerating onto a motorway with a car that takes 20 seconds to get to 65 is an art and very scary with wagons sat at 60 - we'd have to increase slip-lane length massively and that would take extra contsruction and energy :)

They do get mistreated. Constantly sat near the red line the newer ones seem to start losing power and cant get above 60 on uphil stretches after a trip to weymouth and back (600 miles or so). In these cases no elec failures but admitedly not all mechanical engine failures.

I think all in all its very hard to compare, as most of the time its apples and oranges. And contrary to my "engineers" stance that I adopt at work/in general i love the lazy everlasting thud of a V8.

It's a suprisingly short time. However the difference in effeciency isn;t normally large so the paybacks a long time.

The energy required to make a car from scratch is approximately the same as burning 3200 litres of fuel. That would take some catch-up!