small motors and a turbo = short life?

I am in need of a new car as I have reached 295k trouble free miles it seems like most car brands selling sedans use small 1.5L motors with a turbo there are a few that don't but that limits my options. I watch a mechanic on youtube and he claims that any gas car/truck with a small motor and a turbo will never last as long as a larger motor with no turbo as the smaller motor has to work that much harder.


Just wondering your thoughts as i have been very lucky with my 2010 toyota.
99% of taxis in Europe use small turbo engines.
That other 1% uses big engines, with turbo.
 
I am in need of a new car as I have reached 295k trouble free miles it seems like most car brands selling sedans use small 1.5L motors with a turbo there are a few that don't but that limits my options. I watch a mechanic on youtube and he claims that any gas car/truck with a small motor and a turbo will never last as long as a larger motor with no turbo as the smaller motor has to work that much harder.


Just wondering your thoughts as i have been very lucky with my 2010 toyota.
Small displacement turbocharging has been SOP in Europe for decades (gas and diesel). However, from a maintenance perspective turbos can be higher maintenance simply because there are more connections which can develop leaks (coolant and/or oil) but turbo failures themselves are rare.

Another thing that you've haven't mentioned is that a lot of these engines also have some VVT system and DI or DI/PI fuel injection so there's more to it than turbo vs NA.

btw...YT personalities have to paint with broad brushes because they're trying to generate traffic to their channel and they know who their audience is.
 
Most of these turbo engines make full boost and torque at less than 1500rpm. Turbo lag died in the 90s.
Turbo lags most definitely did NOT die in the 90's. Go test drive a 2015 Chevy Cruze....with a manual. Man how painful that was to drive, every gear shift....wait for the turbo.
 
Define “short life.” The wife’s Volvo has 297,000 miles on its 2.4 liter turbo. Original engine, original turbo.

That long enough for you?

I’ll post when it hits 300,000.
Is 2.4 liter considered small displacement anymore?

I honestly think the small displacement is more an issue than the turbo at this point? I have not owned one so just speculation.
 
I am in need of a new car as I have reached 295k trouble free miles it seems like most car brands selling sedans use small 1.5L motors with a turbo there are a few that don't but that limits my options. I watch a mechanic on youtube and he claims that any gas car/truck with a small motor and a turbo will never last as long as a larger motor with no turbo as the smaller motor has to work that much harder.


Just wondering your thoughts as i have been very lucky with my 2010 toyota.
Depends on the tuning and underlying program engineering. A bad design during RD will end up with a bad output during ownership. Toyota's reliability has not been decided just because no turbos, its because they built motors that were programmed to run slower then their counterparts/less stress. They also built FI motors, and right now a lot of motors are FIed, does that mean its junk as well?

Research the model forum for the car you are interested, check the TSBs/Recall programs on NHTSA, see what problems are present and then make decision.
 
I ran a mildly tuned Mazdaspeed 3 from 2007 to 2015 for a total of 158k miles. UOA indicated that an OCI of 7.5k miles on M1 was, if anything, conservative. I only sold it because I wanted a RWD track toy. For me 150k-200k miles is the maximum distance I enjoy owning a car(my Club Sport and Wrangler excepted). Couple that with the fact that I’ve owned 6 turbo cars since 1993, and it should be obvious that I don’t suffer from forced induction phobia.
 
Turbo lags most definitely did NOT die in the 90's. Go test drive a 2015 Chevy Cruze....with a manual. Man how painful that was to drive, every gear shift....wait for the turbo.
VW got all this right. There is zero turbo lag in my GTI. My Dodge Omni GLH had plenty of turbo lag but that was back in the 1980s.
 
There actually is very little data out there that small (let’s say <=1.6L) turbo engines last as they have not been out that long. Many people posting had engines over 2.0L including myself.
 
My unscientific opinion is that companies can build small turbo motors capable of similar reliability to their naturally aspirated counterparts. The determining factor on longevity probably is more reliant on how the are maintained.
But if it is finicky on maintenance that alone says something. Afterall I have seen naturally aspirated motors abused and still running.
 
But if it is finicky on maintenance that alone says something. Afterall I have seen naturally aspirated motors abused and still running.

All they require is an oil change like any other car.
 
I’ll counter my own point to earlier, or at least add to it.

long term turbo ownership for me was best experienced by the used Volvo. And to show some understanding of the fear of ownership, the repairs I did go through when I bought the Volvo were more extensive than used NAs, simply for their added complexity. There were additional coolant lines, and oil lines, and an electrically-boosted vacuum circuit for the brake booster. The brake system gave me some trouble until I figured it out, and I caught it before it ran the e-pump to destruction.

had someone without know-how bought the car, it was headed to its final owner, as the R&R was involving from a man-hours perspective. It also showed what the car needed car that the previous owner (3rd owner) didn’t invest. The turbo and engine weren’t the issue, but the know-how and cost of maintenance may have been.

however, as a bitoger, what I did was simple diy standard procedure… drag it home, drive it some while replacing all the worn bits over time. Heck, I even diy-repaired the steering angle sensor / clock spring and got it to index properly in a very unorthodox manner with a new notch from a power drill. For folks not as comfortable around the dirty side of the hood, the added complexity does create some level of disadvantage. though, as a bitoger, hand me my turbo and +3 mpg, and low end torque, please and thank you.
 
Is 2.4 liter considered small displacement anymore?

I honestly think the small displacement is more an issue than the turbo at this point? I have not owned one so just speculation.
That’s an interesting point.

I guess that I’m old enough to think that a 2.4 liter is small, since my first car had a 350 CU in V-8.

Roughly 5.7 liters.
 
That’s an interesting point.

I guess that I’m old enough to think that a 2.4 liter is small, since my first car had a 350 CU in V-8.

Roughly 5.7 liters.
Yep, me too. Our Toyota 2.5l dynamic force is the smallest car engine I have ever owned. When I bought my Xterra in 2008 I thought 4.0l was small. 1.4l was a large engine - for a motorcycle.
 
That’s an interesting point.

I guess that I’m old enough to think that a 2.4 liter is small, since my first car had a 350 CU in V-8.

Roughly 5.7 liters.
I think the OP is thinking/asking about the 1.4T - 1.6T range of motors .

Your first car likely had less or close HP to a Civic.
 
Been reading online about the advances they're making in the DC current/electrical powered turbos. Makes sense to me, seems to eliminate half of the mechanics.
 
today many turbos are oil + water cooled like my traded at 200 thou vw 1.8T + it was CHIPPED seeing 25 lbs of boost at times. i used real synthetic PAO only even dumped + saved the dealers FREE changes asap!! although i went 10 thou between changes while working @ 100 or so daily miles oil changes were frequent, after retirement its 5,000 thou + a new filter ALWAYS!!
 
Back
Top