When I was younger my dad's friends thought my Mitsubishi Eclipse was spearheading an invasion of crypto-imperial Japan, and now the "New World Order" is trying to take away their gigantic, heavy ass cast-iron engines? A turbo six Charger would still be fast enough to kill you and several bystanders. If it's superior handling and gas mileage upset you, you could always weld a couple of boat anchors to the front bumper. :)
It's remarkable, but there's so much skepticism. Everyone else in its class is a V6 that puts out less hp, less torque, and worse gas mileage.
"A harbinger of our brave new world order has been revealed yet again"
"There are those who can’t stand that you can get into your privately-owned vehicle at any time of the day or night and drive virtually anywhere you please."
"These budding authoritarians view that and all other forms of personal freedom as threats to their power."
How am I supposed to take this content seriously. :/
> Probably gets better fuel economy
The latter claim is very subjective, so I'm not sure what to do with that. But a 2mpg difference in fuel economy (eg. 22 mog vs 24 mpg) at $5/gal fuel prices saves about $3000 over 150k miles.
Assuming a 100% chance of replacement at 150k miles, it's still more economical to go with the turbo. And in practice a base turbo-4 ranger is already $3k less MSRP than a base V6 Tacoma.
But beyond economics, the turbo-4 is better day to day than the competing 6. More hp, more torque. More towing capability.
It seems to me like there's a lot of FUD at work here, which is OPs original point.
I have owned turbo cars and have added turbo's to cars that didn't come with them. They reduce reliability and greatly increase complexity. A bonus is higher cylinder pressure and more heat. Changes to EGT's can effect the emissions as well.
IMO turbo cars are very dirty "under boost". Often turbo cars are tuned rich (more fuel) to prevent detonation. They can have great emissions just cruising around, but the second you build boost....not so much.
I ran methanol/water injection to help keep things cool which was a nice solution, but not for the average person. From my research this would improve the emissions as well. I was able to run more timing advance and slightly leaner fuel ratio as a bonus.
Getting a turbo rebuilt is a pain. As a 30-something boomer I avoid turbo engines if there is a large displacement option.
Can you build a gas 4cyl turbo car that can hit 200,000 miles? Certainly. Can you do it at the same cost as a non-turbo v6 that can go 400,000 miles? Nope.
Most modern turbocharged cars run direct injection and high metal loading catalysts and target lambda=1 even under boost, which causes tuners' brains to melt upon seeing the factory tune.
Detonation is controlled by less aggressive timing and various direct injection strategies, while high EGTs and NOx are addressed by the high precious metal loading in the cat.
After an extended amount of time in full load these cars will eventually enter catalyst or turbine protection and start dropping lambda, but this is uncommon amongst daily driving conditions (even under boost).
The rest is true, I agree - there is no practical way that a part which spins at 180,000rpm and pressurizes the intake manifold (introducing a ton of complexity to the PCV system, engine packaging, and everything else along the way) is going to be as reliable as a naturally aspirated engine at the same cost. But, if this comes with enough advantages to make the cost expenditure worth it, they can be made reliable.
For lighter aluminum-block turbo engines, I'm a fan of the 4B11T (in my daily driver, an Evo X) and the BMW B58 (with continued development, I think it will become the greatest inline-6 of our time, this generation's 2JZ).
Boomers grew up seeing Japan besting US cars and the subsequent job losses, etc. All following the 70's gas shortages, and so on. It probably felt like a conspiracy.
There's a reason imports had a tin can reputation to overcome.
The fuel crisis gave the Japanese brands a foot in the door. Detroit had to take languishing compact car platforms that were only available with poverty spec trims feature sets (because the target buyer was someone who's #1 priority was low cost) and bring them up to snuff with the features and comfort the average buyer wanted. Japan had those products ready to go. They weren't "beating" anything until the mid to late 80s. The boomers didn't grow up seeing Japanese cars out-compete. That didn't happen until they themselves were well into adulthood and bought a bunch of Japanese commuter cars in the late 80s and 90s.
The 80s decline of Detroit was just the collective bargaining and corporate management hens coming home to roost right at the same time that environmental law was really hitting US industry hard.
GM's market share dropped faster after 1980, but it had already dropped 10% between 1964 and the early 70's. That's not nothing.