Renault Doesn’t Want You To Know How Small Its New Big-Car Engine Is
Renault has launched its newest engine in conjunction with Mercedes and Smart’s parent company, Daimler. And it doesn’t seem to want to tell you how small it is.
The engine, which will see action first in the Scenic and Grand Scenic, is just 1.3 litres in capacity. Those cars are not small, so the unit has its work cut out. In fairness the engineers behind it have managed to squeeze as much as 158bhp out of it, so outright shove isn’t really the issue for the two family cars.
Drop off boost with a car full of luggage and passengers and you can kiss your momentum goodbye. Hills will involve down-shifts, too. Such are the compromises that downsizing brings, even if the peak numbers are actually pretty impressive for the size of the engine.
Three power outputs will be offered, from 113bhp to 158bhp via a 138bhp half-way house. The most powerful version coughs up 192lb ft from 1750rpm, or slightly more if you choose the automatic gearbox.
We bet you never expected us to mention the Nissan GT-R in this story, but we’re about to. The new 1.3 unit borrows Bore Spray Coating from the Japanese sports car, reducing piston friction and optimising heat transfer across the block.
There’s a token reduction in carbon emissions versus the old engines – 7g/km on the five-seat Scenic and 11g/km on the seven-seat Grand Scenic. We’re yet to discover which Daimler models will use the same engine, but with figures like these it’s a feasible heart for the upcoming Mercedes A-Class…
Comments
Thanks to manufactures like Renault, car mechanics will never run out of work.
Now all it needs is a slick shifting manual and we’ll be happy
That can’t afford to make big ones because they need to fix f1 first.
Its a lot more powerful compared to the outgoing 1.6. Regular Renaults are never that fast anyway
This is a common issue now.
Look at this big 1.8 tonne 4x4 Jeep.
What engine is powering it? Surely a V8?… No. Maybe a V6? Not a V6 either. Ok, maybe a torquey 2-litre turbo?
No, it’s actually a tiny 1.4 litre Italian turbo four-pot with just 140hp…
And of course, Jeep will never tell you that unless you ask. Instead, they will focus on how great it looks and how soft (not) the plastics are. And it’s only when you try to tow something or drive uphill, you will realise that something is wrong with this car…
Those emissions reductions only exist in the test. In real life it probably does worse than a slightly larger engine with less boost. They’ll be screwed over if/when these tests become more realistic.
Can someone please stop downsizing?? 😲
Everything under 2l in a car of that sice is total madness! A 1.4l engine is fine in a small car and can even be good fun. The Abarth 500 and even my Opel/Vauxhall Adam S are good examples for that but putting it in a big car will just make it slow, underpowered and in real life even worse in fuel economy because the engine always has to work extremely hard to take it somewhere.
Meet the new Renault Scenic, about as good as an old beat up Scenic
This engine is awesome. Loads of torque (more then 1.5 Turbo in a Civic for all jap fannboys out there). Performance is significantly better then outgoing 1.2 Tce, 140 HP variant has 1s better 0-60 then previous 130HP. I really don’t see what is so wrong with small turbo engines, I love my 0.9Tce Clio, fast enough and fun because you can push it, turbo does feel while you are driving. Also, I didn’t hear any CT team complaining too much about 1.4 TSI in Kodiaq which is way bigger car.