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Originally Posted by jtbo
Today's high tech in car engines is 40 years old on ships, for example common rail injection, has been used in ships really long time before in cars.
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You are thinking of diesel engines, where direct injection in many forms has been around forever. A diesel engine requires injection into the combustion chamber, or at least a pre-combustion chamber in early designs. I am talking about gasoline engines, where, while the technology definitely isn't new, it has only been implemented in the last few years. I think the VW 2.0FSI engine was one of the first engines to make GDI "normal". Now we are seeing this technology everywhere - VW, Hyundai/Kia, Ford and Mazda. Toyota and Honda aren't on the bandwagon yet but no doubt will be soon. From what I understand, GDI allows for highly statified charges, allowing overall leaner air/fuel ratios, by making the area nearest the spark plug rich enough to support combustion and the rest of the chamber lean - basically, a variable air/fuel ratio in the same charge. That's as best as I can understand it. A more apt description from someone else would be appreciated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by notanarborist
Wow, that's not very good mileage on the Escape for what it is. My wife and I are averaging 23.0 mpg on our 03 Town And Country with 3.8l with the occasional average going to 23.1(and this is with the odometer reading about 4% low).
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That's exactly why I got rid of the Escape. "For what it is" is the reason. Such a small vehicle should get better figures. I attribute the ridiculously low economy to the poor transmission. A genuine slush-box in every sense of the term. The engine was always revving at 2500 rpm to even acclerate a modest amount in traffic because of so much torque converter slippage. I tried "freezing the slush-box" (see other posts about this) by overriding the torque-converter lockup, but the transmission would usually just go into a limp-home mode after a while. It sort of worked, but not well enough to make a difference. On the highway, it wasn't ridiculously bad - 25 mpg on road trips. It was just the city driving that was awful, again, because of the slushiness.