A big blobby 500X would be a terrible place for the Abarth badge...

I don't see any of these "improvements" really being positive moves (apart from the interior if you prefer the painted plastic).

Crazy to go from 3 diesels to none at all...

1.4 Multiair turbo is a good engine for these cars, but a 1 litre 3-pot ??

bluejohn125 said:

A big blobby 500X would be a terrible place for the Abarth badge...

I don't see any of these "improvements" really being positive moves (apart from the interior if you prefer the painted plastic).

Crazy to go from 3 diesels to none at all...

1.4 Multiair turbo is a good engine for these cars, but a 1 litre 3-pot ??

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Media scare tactics have made diesels the devil these day's. At least in the UK

chris3234 said:

Media scare tactics have made diesels the devil these day's. At least in the UK

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I've always maintained (and yes I've owned a Fiat Croma 150BHP 16V MultiJet) that diesel engines are/were designed for hight torque contant load applications at low RPM. We are talking ships, generators, trans continental (USA / Australia / China / Russia etc) trains etc.

Under these conditions they are effiecient and relatively clean except during the start-up/warm-up periods. They were never designed or meant to be "flexible and dynamic" engines. They are near cruse oil burners.

Due to the traditionally lower diesel costs (used to be joked that in some countries they can't even give it away) and improved MPG over petrol it was inevitable that diesel engines would find their way into cars.

Techinally to clean up a diesel engine for automobile use is a technically complex and expensive design and production undertaking. Any cheating that reduces the costs was bound to be "fair game" and so it did come to pass.

Fiat pulling diesel engines for automobiles is not unexpected. Other manufacturers are doing it as well. It is just too expensive to design and develop a range of clean diesel engine for automibiles. Any business person would come back to basics and this is waht we are seeing.

The RIGHT engine for the RIGHT job. Petrol for autmobiles, diesel for trucks, goods vehicles etc.

Having said this I can see a place for a small capacity "generic" diesel generator engine for all electric drive cars. Unlike the diesel electric trains that have no electrical energy stores the vehicles would have large batteries and thus power reserves. The diesel generator would only kick in when required, run at a constant speed and load till its job is done. Crucial would be the ideal mass and warm-up to get an clean burn in the shortest space of time, possibly using the vehicles battery power to pre-heat the diesel engine, etc.

Being a professional engineer (retired) I would have loved to work on a project like this.

As for diesel engines dropping out of automobile use then I'm quite pleased. I loved my Croma (my first and only ever diesel car) and have towed since before year 2000, with both petrol and the Croma. The diesel tower was a great puller but actually so is my 500X 1.4 MultiAir II. Indeed (can't remember the exact figures) the 500X develops over 2/3rds of the torque of the 1.9 MultiJet diesels at a lower RPM. This is quit staggering when you come to think about it.

Although as mentioned they are still selling Diesels on the continent - just pulled from the UK 500X lineup................

s130 said:

I've always maintained (and yes I've owned a Fiat Croma 150BHP 16V MultiJet) that diesel engines are/were designed for hight torque contant load applications at low RPM. We are talking ships, generators, trans continental (USA / Australia / China / Russia etc) trains etc.

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....and high mileage motorway driving.

I can't think of a better engine type at the moment for this purpose.

Imo electric makes perfect sense in town/ short distance commutes, and diesel for the high mileage constant load motorway driving. If anything I'd argue that the most redundant option is petrol.

For a car fully loaded or towing, petrol is the worst option of the 3 too.

Small capacity petrol engines have come a long way since the days of the Daihatsu charade gtti which i remember was the first car I can remember to develop 100bhp from a 1 litre engine. The issue in those old cars was the torque curves very much mimicked the profile of the power curve. These days the torque profile has improved a lot making them far more driveable.

I think at the moment the unwarranted negative press regarding diesel is a great buying opportunity. What was commonly a 2k premium for a more expensive diesel car has all but vanished, and if people believe that resale value's could be affected down the line remember that most cars will lose 70% in 4-5 years so the 2k you save upfront will be far higher than any potential loss come sale time. And all the while your probably getting a 30-40% saving on fuel costs.

One of the articles if i remember correctly further up this thread from BMW said there is a future for diesel in the premium end of the market, and I fully believe it.

I did a 230 mile run in my 500x 2.0mjd 4WD over the summer. At 75mph the revs are just under 2,000 and it feels like it has masses of excess power and torque at hand. This is while it's doing 49mpg with climate control on constantly. In a petrol I'd guess you'd be revving at 1,000rpm more, with less reserves on tap, while doing 10-15mpg less.

I fully understand and agree with the pressure on EU4 standard diesels and below (up to 2009), but if you look at the EU6 comparison petrol vs diesel they are all but identical. Thats unless the krauts want to bend the rules a bit.

Indeed.................it was a miracle if you could get any of the now supposedly 'Classic' sub 1.3 litre BL range to even reach the maximum permitted speed for the Queens Highways in the 70's/80's!

Garree001 said:

I had a twinair in a MiTo courtesy car once. Though it was broken! It was like an old petrol lawnmower and I felt like I had to tread on it to start it.



On the subject of three pot engines, Ford's 999cc one has won numerous awards and yes it's a lovely drive except when low in the rev range. However they keep going bang and Ford are desperate to keep this under wraps. They know there are major problems but their solution in the face of an expensive set of repairs is to be extremely aggressive with customers. The main problem is the bargain basement cooling system they installed. Very fragile. But being such a small and light engine that runs very hot means that even a miniscule coolant leak results in catastrophic failure. Had numerous battles with Ford myself and know their tactics.



In short, I'd have to think extremely carefully about getting a small screaming engine with less than 4 cylinders.

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I'm not sure Ford can keep it under wraps any more [emoji23][emoji23]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-45628325

cowabunga said:

....and high mileage motorway driving.

I can't think of a better engine type at the moment for this purpose.

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And there in lies the problem.

Diesel as I said is perfect for constant load, long distance running.

Ships are now known to heavily pollute whilst they start up in ports. Once on a long trip voyage they go into a pretty much constant rpm / load / best can do clean burn. New regulations now require these "ideal" usage profile engines to be cleaned up with filters and complex engine management systems.

There is no way a diesel car, even on the German autobahns can ever be considered to be in a fairly constant load mode. Add the town driving to get to the autobahn and get off the autobahn then you have a dirty burn situation that manufacturers have great difficulty in cleaning up. Hence they CHEAT as done by VW and others.

It is very complex, expensive, etc. to clean up a "dynamic" diesel engine.

We also now have petrol engines coming under the cosh wrt to emissions. Not talking about CO but particulate emission. Petrol burns hundreds of time cleaner (wrt particulates) compared to diesel but new future regulations will possibly require petrol engines to be fitted with particulate filters.

I don't know about LPG burn emissions but the way things are going you household natural gas boiler will soon be targeted.

Ho - hum

Alanw47 said:

I'm not sure Ford can keep it under wraps any more [emoji23][emoji23]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-45628325

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Haha I may have made a high pitched noise when I saw that this morning!

Has anyone tried out the new 1.0 3 cylinder engine? I've seen a few reviews on YouTube that suggest it's punchy enough for town driving and comfortable on the motorway. I have a TA 105 so wouldn't want to compromise too much on performance.

Yes it’s brilliant, much much better than my wife’s ecoboost in her fiesta.

simon_16vpunto said:

Yes it’s brilliant, much much better than my wife’s ecoboost in her fiesta.

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Very interesting and hopefully good news for manual gearbox drivers looking to other than "dead duck" performance.

Towing with a 1000kg caravan might be a completely different issue *BUT* I was staggered by how good and competitive/equal the 1.4 MultiAir was compared to my 150BHP, MultiJet 2.0 Turbo Diesel in my Croma 2005 when towing out 1000kg Eriba caravan.

Will be interesting to see what independent test reports (if any) say on towing ability.

Beginning research on my next 500X.

Any views on the DDCT dated with the new Firefly engines?