Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way | Motoring discussion | Back Room Forum

Sun 4 Mar 2012 22:59

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - Trilogy

Taken from the Autocar website.

Vauxhall-Opel is poised to replace its entire line-up of four-cylinder diesel and petrol engines, starting this year with a new range of direct-injection 1.6 petrol units for the Astra.

The engines will feature hi-tech refinements required to cut fuel consumption and CO2, such as turbocharging, double variable valve timing and, where necessary, balancer shafts. They will all be designed to work in hybrid applications.

The move, involving a €500 million investment and first revealed by Autocar last year, was announced this week by CEO Karl-Friedrich Stracke.

It means that, by 2014, the group will be offering three all-new modular engine families: MGE (Mid-Size Gasoline); MGD (Mid-Size Diesel), also comprising mostly 1.6s with various outputs; and SGE (Small Gas Engine), which will feature three-cylinder and four-cylinder petrol engines between 1.0 and 1.4 litres. Stracke says all of GMís ubiquitous Family Zero engines will be replaced by 2014.

The emphasis for future performance cars will be on four-pot turbos with outputs up to and beyond the Astra VXRís 276bhp. There is no plan to replace existing V6s with new designs. They will be developed as necessary, says Stracke, but demand is expected to decline.

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 05:51

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - dadbif

Don't hold your breath, with Vince Cable on the job the Astra will soon be being built in Brazil..

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 08:44

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - diddy1234

about time and GM doesn't really have a choice in the matter.

They are only copying ford after all (ecoboost engines).

I do however wonder how long these new engines will last.

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 09:16

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - ChannelZ

GM trying to breathe a bit more life out of the Family 0 and II. Great. Those engines were well past their useful lives long ago.

They should know by now those engines are rubbish - broken camshalfs in the 1.2, head gaskets in the 1.0, 1.4 doesn't last, and the 1.6 is nowhere near competive. The 1.8 is pretty awful too.

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 09:42

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - unthrottled

They should know by now those engines are rubbish - broken camshalfs in the 1.2

That problem affected a batch of Corsas around 2005-hardly an endemic problem!

I thought the 1.2 Twinport was an excellent engine, very smooth and rugged. I thought the same about the older 1.6 ecotec. Way better than the Ford rubbish at the time, wasn't the 1.3 CVH still rounds in the late 90s? Horrible motor. As were all TDDis, underpowered, noisy, smoky pireces of junk.

Disappointed to see GM give up on port injection, that would have been a plus for me.

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 13:03

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - ChannelZ

I had a Corsa C, bought new with the 1.2 Twinport. Rubbish. Cam chain slapping before 6k, fixed under warranty. Wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding. Shame, as it was a great little car, just let down by that boat anchor. Considering that car replaced a Mk4 Astra with the 75hp 1.6 8v SPI which was a far, far better engine in every way.

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 13:09

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - unthrottled

Wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding.

It's a n/a naturally aspirated 75 inch egine. What did you expect?

My brother had one a corsa C 1.2 twinport. He thrashed the living daylights out of it and completely neglected it (I checked the dipstick once and the oil level didn't even reach the bottom). It never skipped a beat, pulled smoothly from low RPM and was still refined when cruising at 5000 RPM. In fact nothing on that much abused car ever went wrong.

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 13:22

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - ChannelZ

Wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding.

It's a n/a naturally aspirated 75 inch egine. What did you expect?

Something better than the 75hp 1.6 8v SPI in the heavier Astra. Smaller car, supposedly hi-tech 16v engine. The old 8v from the 80s was far better. More torque, pulled better on the motorway, and got better fuel economy.

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 13:58

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - unthrottled

Something better than the 75hp 1.6 8v SPI in the heavier Astra.

Naive. How can you expect an engine with 25% less capacity to make more power. The 1.2 will make much less power right up until the 8V 1.6 head stops breathing.

The 2V having more low end torque than 4V isn't really true. It has some merit in fixed geometry intake manifolds. But a twinport breathes through one valve below 3500RPM and has a very flat torque curve-way flatter than a 2V.

Cars from the 80's were much lighter which is why they were often more lively and economical than their later counterparts. The extra weight more than offset the improvement in engine technology.

I like 2 Valvers-I drive one. But I'm not going to pretend that they will outpull a4 Valvers-because it isn't true. 2 Valvers need turbos to work properly-which is the way I think it should have been done.

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 15:28

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - madf

Given GM's engineering, everyone else will be ten years ahead of them by the time the new engines are being sold...

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 16:26

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - unthrottled

Given the price of the cars, there's very little wrong with GM engineering. Any graduate trainee can design a fancy yet bulletproof engine when he can simply reach for the most expensive components. Honda, Toyota, BMW etc. are much more expensive than GM/Ford. Once you factor in purchase price the 'quality' of the engineering isn't necessarily better.

The British consumer is a greedy beast. He wants the best but doesn't want to pay for it.

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 16:59

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - madf

GM lose a fortune in Europe. Discounting cannot help. Mind you, who woiuld buy a GM car at full price?

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 17:20

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - unthrottled

Recently, Vauxhall/Opel's popularity has declined in Europe. The Zafira and Meriva MPVs were, frankly, sub par. The Agila was also very dorky.The Insignia is too big, but the Astra and the Corsa are very good. The police used the latter for long enough...

No-one buys a Vauxhall because they want a Vauxhall. They buy them for the same reason that people buy Fords, Renaults, Protons etc: They are cheap.

As far as I'm aware, the only company that can build a 200mph supercar for $100k is GM (C6 Corvette). It's competitors run at about twice this price-or more.

Same goes for the Cadillac CTS. Pretty much matches Mercedes AMG63 and the BMW M5 in every objective respect-but at little over half the price.

GM's european range might be a little off the boil, but GM as a company is remarkably resilient. It pulled itself out of bankruptcy VERY quickly and has returned a healthly profit only a couple of years later. I wouldn't bet against their european operations doing the same.

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 17:57

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - jamie745

The British consumer is a greedy beast. He wants the best but doesn't want to pay for it.

Fair point. He wants it to be super reliable, comfortable, supercar fast, corner like a BMW and do 50mpg at the same time but he only wants to spend £10 on it. Quite what manufacturers are supposed to do with that i dont know. Vauxhalls, Fords, Kias etc are built down to a price and engineered for a good balance between quality and value, they try to give you as much as possible for as little as possible, they'll never be 100% perfect at anything but if you want perfection you have to pay for it. I'm not a fan of Vauxhall, the only one ive ever seriously considered buying was the Omega but the ones i test drove were sub par, a better example might've won me over though.

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Mon 5 Mar 2012 18:05

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - Trilogy

Some people buy Vauxhalls because they perceive them as being better than a Ford.

I addition they buy for convenience, if it's their local garage.

And, the Insignificant is a good car.

Edited by Trilogy on 05/03/2012 at 18:07

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Thu 8 Mar 2012 01:40

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - primeradriver

Vauxhall are much more popular in the UK than Opel are on the continent.

People consider Vauxhall to be 'British' (in the same way they do Ford), so they buy them.

Which is why the Vauxhall brand has lasted 30-40 years longer than it ever should have.

Cheap, tatty tin boxes with all the redemption of a ten year old Kia. I don't see them changing much.

But yes, Opels are cheap, and being readily available on the used market due to the massive fleet sales they make a good case for themselves as a cheap-to-run, totally unremarkable runabout.

Folk criticise the Japanese cars for much the same thing -- except they generally have more quality about them, and many of them actually are British-made. Horses for courses, I guess.

I don't understand the point in Opel designing these new engines when the fleets, and the bottom-feeder private market, don't care. Ford would still be selling millions of Escorts if they hadn't brought out the Focus, and Opel will still be selling their undistinguished tin by the boatload if they don't bother. That's the nature of their customer.

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Thu 8 Mar 2012 12:38

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - ChannelZ

Something better than the 75hp 1.6 8v SPI in the heavier Astra.

Naive. How can you expect an engine with 25% less capacity to make more power. The 1.2 will make much less power right up until the 8V 1.6 head stops breathing.

Look, brainiac. I drove a 1.6 8v Astra for 18 months, the immediately after a 1.2 16v Corsa. The Astra was 6 years old, the Corsa brand new. Both did 20k in the 18 months I had them.

Guess what? THE 1.6 8V WAS FAR BETTER TO DRIVE.

So unless you drove both as much as I did, you know what you can do with your opinion.

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Thu 8 Mar 2012 13:17

Vauxhall - New GM engines on the way - unthrottled

Guess what? THE 1.6 8V WAS FAR BETTER TO DRIVE.

Yes, because it was 33% bigger! That's exactly what I said.

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