Preaching to the choir here for SURE!
The real problem is much deeper however than just offering a "turbo" here and there. In an effort to maintain CAFE standards manufacturers are offering smaller and smaller power plants, AND.... in an effort to try and keep the (American) motoring public buying said vehicles they are slapping a turbo on woefully anemic power plants.
Back when my daughter was in high school she was given an loaner while here GTP was in the shop. That loaner was a SAAB 9.3 that was rated at 255HP (or might have been the one with 280), really didn't matter though. Problem is/was that unless you kept it revved up to redline it darned near couldn't get out of it's own way! Her car was a 3.9L V6 rated at 240HP and it'd stomp the living crap outta' that SLOB... er SAAB.
She got out the owners manual and it had inside, ever so proudly.... "
Welcome to European driving!"
She was like: "
So in Europe you have cars you HAVE to drive wide open, buy gas by the Liter, and they STILL won't get out of their own way."
The underlying part that really gets me though is that you have smaller, under powered, over worked engines trying their very best to propel 3700 pound vehicles, huffing and puffing from the time you crank it up. Or in the case of pickups these days, lugging 4700 pound vehicles down the road knowing all the while that the power plant IS the weakest link in the grand scheme of things.
Imagine towing a 4000 pound travel trailer with the frontal area of an expressway billboard with a 3.7L turbo in your crew cab?
One of the oldest things known to man when it comes to engines and power (initially coined in drag racing); There is no substitute for cubic inches!
Yeah yeah... I know that a lighter, more powerful engine gives you better F/R weight distribution, but we're not talking about race cars here. Buyer in the last decade have been keeping vehicles longer than ever, that's well documented. Perhaps the auto manufacturers have caught on
and decided they'll start selling vehicles where the engines wear out long before the rust prevention does. Which of course forces you to get rid of that hunk-o-junk just after the 36,000 powertrain warranty expires.
I'll take that 5.3L/5.7L 'Merican' V8 any day thank you.
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