Developing new engines

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Tue 13 Aug 2013 23:11
Developing new engines - RT

Both Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo are busy developing totally new engines following their sell-off's from Ford, not a cheap exercise.

Despite their much larger sales volume, Ford couldn't afford to develop new diesels on their own so had to enter a joint arrangement with Peugeot Citroen.

What's changed with engine development economics that allows JLR and Volvo to do it on low volumes when Ford couldn't do it on high volumes ?

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Tue 13 Aug 2013 23:32
Developing new engines - Leif

It might simply be that the profit per car is much lower for a typical Ford such as a Ford Focus because the lower end market is far more price sensitive, so it is easier for Land Rover to amortise development costs over sales, even though they sell far fewer cars.

Jagular Land Rover are doing very well at the moment with record sales to China.

Anyway I suspect Tata is cash rich, as they rake in a fortune from renting out software engineers to companies who are daft enough to take their staff. (Not a totally dispassionate statement.)

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 00:59
Developing new engines - unthrottled

Marketing.

Neither Jaguar nor Volvo has independantly designed a new engine for a long time. Neither has the capability to do so. Premium brands can't be seen to be dropping run-of-the-mill engines into their cars so have to go through the charade of pretending to develop a clean sheet of paper design.

In reality, the major components are designed out of house. OEMs are in the business of series production, not development. The turbo will be Garratt or Borg Warner. The fuel injection system provided by Delphi. Bosch or Siemans. Pistons will be Mahle or Federal Mogul.

OEMs are left with building an engine block and cylinder head as a platform to which the goodies are attached. Standard empirical formulae set the basic geometry. The talent lies in ensuring that series production engines fall within very tight tolerences of the design spec.

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 08:51
Developing new engines - RT

Marketing.

Neither Jaguar nor Volvo has independantly designed a new engine for a long time. Neither has the capability to do so. Premium brands can't be seen to be dropping run-of-the-mill engines into their cars so have to go through the charade of pretending to develop a clean sheet of paper design.

In reality, the major components are designed out of house. OEMs are in the business of series production, not development. The turbo will be Garratt or Borg Warner. The fuel injection system provided by Delphi. Bosch or Siemans. Pistons will be Mahle or Federal Mogul.

OEMs are left with building an engine block and cylinder head as a platform to which the goodies are attached. Standard empirical formulae set the basic geometry. The talent lies in ensuring that series production engines fall within very tight tolerences of the design spec.

All manufacturers, big and small use engineering consultancies on engine work, Cosworth do major work for Ford, Opel/Vauxhall and Mercedes-Benz to my knowledge and Ricardo do the same.

Equally, all manufacturers, big or small, use outside suppliers like Bosch, Delphi, Siemens, Garrett, KKK, Borg Warner, IHI, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Holset and Schwitzer.

If it's that "easy" for JLR and Volvo, why didn't Ford do it and why did Opel/Vauxhall need to join with Fiat for engine development - and why did Mitsubishi need to use VAG and then PSA diesels before developing their own?

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 09:07
Developing new engines - craig-pd130

As a Volvo owner I've read up on their 'new' engine design -- they're taking the modular approach, in which every variant (petrol and diesel) will be a 4-cylinder using the same basic block architecture, with different ancilliaries for different duties.

It's a shame, as I think the engine is the heart of a car, and Volvo's 5-potters do differentiate the marque from its rivals. I suppose BMW is doing the same thing by replacing its midrange straight-six engines with turbo 4-pots.

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 09:22
Developing new engines - RT

The Volvo 5-cyl engines originated as Audi units and then developed on - but inline-5's never achieved their theoretical promise of smoother than an inline-4 but cheaper than a 6-cyl engine - probably why Audi and Mercedes haven't continued down that route.

The gruffness of the Volvo 5-cyl diesel is the sole reason I never bought an XC70.

Modern engine design is all about meeting EU corporate fuel consumption averages which are constantly becoming harder and harder to meet - small capacity high output engines are the only way to meet these averages, hence BMW's changes and the rash of 1.0 litre 3-cyl turbo engines in the old 1.6 segment by Ford.

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 11:55
Developing new engines - craig-pd130

The gruffness of the Volvo 5-cyl diesel is the sole reason I never bought an XC70.

Modern engine design is all about meeting EU corporate fuel consumption averages which are constantly becoming harder and harder to meet - small capacity high output engines are the only way to meet these averages, hence BMW's changes and the rash of 1.0 litre 3-cyl turbo engines in the old 1.6 segment by Ford.

One man's 'gruff' is another's 'character', I suppose :)

It's just a shame that many efficient engines are being sacrificed to meet those EU corporate figures. OK, my car's a sample of one, but a genuine brim-to-brim average of 47mpg from new, in a 1.6 tonne family estate with 160bhp and 300ft-lb of torque, seems pretty efficient to me.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 12:14
Developing new engines - brum

Sick transit glorious mondeo?

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 13:30
Developing new engines - unthrottled

If it's that "easy" for JLR and Volvo, why didn't Ford do it and why did Opel/Vauxhall need to join with Fiat for engine development - and why did Mitsubishi need to use VAG and then PSA diesels before developing their own?

Mitsubishi didn't have a great deal of experience in passenger car diesels.

Neither did GM or Ford.

Obviously there is going to be a trade off between the higher marginal cost of using someone else's engine under licence or the massive capital cost of tooling up for your own design.

But unless JLR or Volvo have some peculiar requirements that are not met by competitors' engines, trying to develop yet another 2 litre(ish), 150hp)ish) 4 pot diesel would surely be an expensive vanity exercise?

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 14:21
Developing new engines - brum

But unless JLR or Volvo have some peculiar requirements that are not met by competitors' engines, trying to develop yet another 2 litre(ish), 150hp)ish) 4 pot diesel would surely be an expensive vanity exercise?

Maybe the costs of the licences to use other manufacturers designs/product are too high, or maybe the licences "expire" in x years.

Maybe these new engines are just a rehash of existing designs.

Maybe the directors of these firms are out of touch with economic reality or getting themselves ready for "retirement".

Maybe Land Rovers have started to become too reliable and they need to go back to basics and redesign an engine that will break down more frequently.

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 15:38
Developing new engines - unthrottled

That's a good point.

Obviously Alfa engineers have to develop a leaky oil seal so the Fiat units feel like proper Alfas.

JLR have to find space for a mouse in the wiring harness otherwise the owners will be bored at weekends.

Any other examples?

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 15:41
Developing new engines - mss1tw

Ford will need a 'Rattling Tappets Acoustic Simulator'

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 17:47
Developing new engines - brum

Just about every manufacturer seems unable to design a camchain tensioner that will last first time round.

Edited by brum on 14/08/2013 at 17:49

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 18:34
Developing new engines - unthrottled

Ford will need a 'Rattling Tappets Acoustic Simulator'

Yes! Aptly named. You have to Endura the racket those engines made. Did they set the clearances with their index fingers?

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 18:57
Developing new engines - mss1tw

Ford will need a 'Rattling Tappets Acoustic Simulator'

Yes! Aptly named. You have to Endura the racket those engines made. Did they set the clearances with their index fingers?

On the good days, yeah :-D

(I never minded my 1.3 - fairly capable, reliable, bomb proof, and crucially at 19, still faster than the majority of 1 litre rev boxes. But yes, rattling away about 3.5 miles after a valve clearance!)

Edited by mss1tw on 14/08/2013 at 18:58

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 20:47
Developing new engines - Mr Fox

This makes no sense, these Ford / PSA diesel engines have been standard issue for at least the last 6 years, they are used in Volvos, Land Rovers, and Jaguars as well as the whole range of Ford, Citroen, Peugeot cars.

1.6, 2.0 and 2.2 lumps have powered all manner of everyday machinery from all the above makes, Even the 2.7 and 3.0 V6 engines have been used in Discovery, Range Rover Sport, Jaguar XF and XJ, plus Peugeot Coupes and Citroen C5 & C6.

Apart from the 1.6 engines they are all very tractable pretty bulletproof, so it makes very little sense to go and develop a new family of engines.

Renault engines also power a lot of Mercedes and Nissan cars nowadays. Diesel has always been about 2/3 of the price of Petrol in France so the French were very quick to adopt and adapt diesels.

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Wed 14 Aug 2013 21:16
Developing new engines - RT

This makes no sense

It's probably due to the cost of licencing fees and the need for JLR and Volvo to regain their premium status rather than being built on Ford platforms.

I've seen it posted that the Ford/PSA engine is a fragile version of the former bullet-proof PSA unit

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Thu 15 Aug 2013 08:28
Developing new engines - Happy Blue!

Don't think you will find many people complaining about the new Ford/PSA diesel engine. As mentioned above, they are fitted in a large number of car models from a surprising number of makers. No-one has come on here to moan about them. I am very happy with my 2.0TDCi. It does its job.

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