VW to turbo all engines+insurance

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
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Wed 6 Jun 2007 23:10
VW to turbo all engines+insurance - runboy
Reading the motoring news, it appears VW wants all its petrol engines to be at least turbo charged, if not both turbo and supercharged. This is seen in the current 1.4TFSI which is both turbo and supercharged and comes in 140 or 170bhp. VW will release a 1.4 turbo producing 120bhp in the summer to replace to the current non-turbo 1.6.

How will this affect insurance premiums, especially for young people? When I was looking for our new car the VW Jetta looked good, but the 1.4TFSI with 140bhp was group 13 IIRC and difficult to get a quote for my young wife.

140bhp is not powerful in this day and age, but the acceleration between a normal engine and turbo/supercharged is where there may be issues I suppose.

Just me rambling on anyway.
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Wed 6 Jun 2007 23:17
VW to turbo all engines+insurance - FotheringtonThomas
How will this affect insurance premiums especially for young people?


The premiums will go up for those models.
140bhp is not powerful in this day


I wouldn't bet on that. I would bet that 140BHP is above average.
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Wed 6 Jun 2007 23:34
VW to turbo all engines+insurance - Pendlebury
I think this is the 1st step in car makers designing petrol cars that drive like diesels (as best they can).
My understanding is that there are some tough new diesel emmissions targets coming into force (that will tackle all the other stuff diesels produce in greater quantities than petrol - i.e. not CO2) soon and the easiest way round these is to go back to petrol - but recognising some people like driving diesels they are trying to get the best of both worlds.
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Wed 6 Jun 2007 23:43
VW to turbo all engines+insurance - Aprilia
Would I like to own a turbo-supercharged vehicle out of warranty ---- hmm, no thanks!
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Thu 7 Jun 2007 00:23
VW to turbo all engines+insurance - George Porge
20 Years ago 16V on the tailgate meant a sports model, today they're fitted accross the reange. In 20 years time all petrol engines will have turbos, small economical engines boosted by forced induction and clean emissions
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Thu 7 Jun 2007 01:02
VW to turbo all engines+insurance - rtj70
To meet the targets on emissions I would think most (all?) marques will move to turbo petrol. Reading today about the 2008 Golf Mk VI it will have a turbo 120PS 1.4 petrol instead of the 1.6 FSI.

I think this is being driven by cleaner emissions and not performance. A 1.6 (non direct injection) could easily do 100PS+ and the FSI version came about for emission reasons. Now we're getting turbo 1.4's.

Is the move to turbo's bad? In my experience smaller turbo'd engines give better drivability and MPG (had a few VAG 1.8T's).
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Thu 7 Jun 2007 08:35
VW to turbo all engines+insurance - cheddar
The 16v point is a good one, once 16v designated sporty, now it is std technology.

The idea with the latest turbo charged petrol engines is to increase torque though also to lower the revs at which max torque is produced, after all the engine speed that at which maximum torque occurs is where each individual cycle of the engine is at it's most effective so if the revs at which this occurs can be lowered (though a healthy level of torque retained) then frictional losses are reduced and efficiency further increases.
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