In our household we have been driving cars with Turbo's since 1996 and would not buy a car without one. The total is currently 8 plus we have had 2 with superchargers as well. Petrols and diesels. Only problem we have had in those 23 years has been a vacuum sensor pipe that was too short and closed up when the engine moved slightly, sorted same day under warranty.

Like you I thought normally aspirated engines were old fashioned. But then the problem I came across was that the car I wanted (KIA Picanto automatic) is only available with the normally aspirated engine, for the time being anyway. Interestingly, in this particular car, the reviewers seem to prefer the normally aspirated four cylinder engine over the turbocharged TGDi particularly in terms of noise and refinement/vibration, probably because the TGDi is a three cylinder engine like many of the little turbocharged petrol engines. The other funny thing with the choice of engines is that the car with the normally aspirated engine doesn't need/have start stop but the TGDi does. Why?

In any event, the normally aspirated engine is fine. The auto Picanto also has a four speed automatic gearbox which people might say is old fashioned; but that seems fine too!

In our household we have been driving cars with Turbo's since 1996 and would not buy a car without one. The total is currently 8 plus we have had 2 with superchargers as well. Petrols and diesels. Only problem we have had in those 23 years has been a vacuum sensor pipe that was too short and closed up when the engine moved slightly, sorted same day under warranty.

Not really enough data.

23 years, 8 cars.

If I assume 2-at-a-time, they'd be trouble-free on average for 6 years per car, which is nice, but hardly immortality.

If the OP wanted to do without the advantages that highly stressed component provides, he would guarantee he'd never have that highly stressed component fail.

That would seem a pretty defendable decision to me.

24 hours ago, you disliked all turbo engines and wanted a n/a car. You have £15k to spend, enough to get you into a 2015 Toyota GT86 (which also happens to be your favourite car) with around 30k miles. Am i missing something?

Now, 24 hours later, you like turbo cars and are looking at a Fiesta ST and Mini Cooper?

Even more weird (unless you happen to have driven the Fiesta within the last 24 hours), you disliked it yesterday morning at 10.39am. So i am wondering what happened between then and now to change your mind?.

Edited by badbusdriver on 06/03/2019 at 10:06

I have owned two turbo engines cars one was a Ford Fiesta 1.0 ecoboost and other a Audi TT 1.8 TFSI

Both suffered from terrible turbo lag which put me off turbos.

Terrible turbo lag?, you obviously don't know the meaning of the term!. Try an early Saab turbo if you want to know what terrible lag actually feels like!.

I haven't driven a Fiesta 1.0 ecoboost, but i have driven plenty of 1.8t Audi's and VW's (i'm talking about the old 20v versions with 150, 180 and 225bhp) and i didn't find them laggy at all (though coming from my experience working at a Saab dealer, my notion of turbo lag may be different than others!).

Don't really like the BMW Mini's myself and never have. But going by the motoring press reaction, the Fiesta ST is literally the best thing since sliced bread!. And, fortunately, the engine seems to be more reliable than the 1.0 ecoboost........!

Now that the industry has embraced turbo- rather than super-charging and has mostly solved reliability issues, I think the NA engine will soon be extinct for general use. Even with the extra cost of adding a turbocharger or two, it is probably cheaper to build an engine half the size (and sometimes half the number of cylinders e.g. Audi RS6 V6 c.f. A8 W12) of its NA equivalent for the same power.