Well, I'm surprised...

woody33

Mrs. Woody has a hire car at the moment, an 11 reg Corolla in Terra spec. The bloke turned up at our door with it and I took it for a little spin just for fun. Pretty nice really, power reasonable, revs up fine, 6 gears and pulls well from low revs. She took it to the garage for fuel and lo and behold, it's a diesel! I had no idea driving it already warmed up, and I thought i knew a little about diesels, having had two Mk2 Golfs with the old non-turbo 1600 oil burner. This morning starting from cold it did sound a bit loud alright but when warmed up it was very civilised. It's probably the 1400 D4D engine, though it seems you can't tell the engine size from the tax disk anymore, just the tax rating. I wonder would it get near the official 56 mpg in mixed driving? I know, I know, Corollas are supposed to be bland, boring, ugly and so on but I thought it was a very impressive little engine. Oh and in case you get the wrong impression, Mrs. Woody is just back from a break in England, and her iPhone has a bunch of pix of a gorgeous lipstick red TVR that caught her eye, reg no. "KISS TVR".

langdang

No rev counters in new corollas?

colm_mcm

It's a 90hp 1.4.
The new 6 speed box helps things alright.
Not bad for a 10 year old engine that started out in the yaris

woody33

Oh very smart, I suppose you are a bounce-off-the-rev-limiter sort of chap...;). It has a rev counter alright, what I wasn't too gone on was the fuel gauge which has bars like a phone battery instead of a good old dial. Don't know what's gone wrong with the world.

colm_mcm

The rev counter redlining at 5000rpm would have been a clue

giant_midget

lol @ this thread, suppose you only noticed coz of the "diesel only" sticker on the back of the filler lid... lol

woody33

Yes, she was shocked to see the sticker, and relieved she didn't put petrol in it!
Re the rev counter: true enough, if I had looked closely enough. I was more concerned when I stalled it and could not get it started again for a bit, even though we had been told to put in the clutch to start. There I was, waving cars to pass and wishing I had thought to bring my phone with me. When did they start using that engine in a Corolla, and would on older one make a decent buy? Mrs Woody loves her Saab 95, but it's a bit thirsty and getting long in the tooth. She also loved driving our daughter's Mazda 6, 2.3 liter automatic estate when she was away. Oh, and she shed real tears when her old Volvo estate 3 liter V6 had to go a few years ago. So maybe she's not really a Corolla type of girl.

unkel

woody33 wrote: »

I thought i knew a little about diesels, having had two Mk2 Golfs with the old non-turbo 1600 oil burner.

LOL, non turbo diesels were typical of the 70s and before. Where have you been in the last 40 years?

Many diesels were turbo in the 80s, direct injection in the early 90s, common rail in the late 90s. And there we are well over 10 years later again

colm_mcm

woody33 wrote: »

When did they start using that engine in a Corolla,

That engine came out on the Corolla in the middle of 2004, replaced the 2.0 D-4D with the same hp. It's actually based on the 1.5 petrol engine from the original Yaris T Sport as its a strong and lightweight block.

The stupid clutch thing started in 2007 on the Corolla, and is also on other models.

They make a good used car as tax is low, but the older 5 speed models of the same shape are sluggish (07-10) the older 02 shape is a good bit lighter so doesn't struggle as much.
The Corolla you're driving is actually heavier than the 03-09 shape Avensis so it's a hefty motor for such a small engine, which makes the good mpg all the more remarkable.

langdang

woody33 wrote: »

Oh very smart, I suppose you are a bounce-off-the-rev-limiter sort of chap...;)

Isn't that what hire cars are for?;)

shamwari

unkel wrote: »

LOL, non turbo diesels were typical of the 70s and before. Where have you been in the last 40 years?

Many diesels were turbo in the 80s, direct injection in the early 90s, common rail in the late 90s. And there we are well over 10 years later again

Non-turbo IDI diesels were very much vogue just beyond the mid '90's. Look at the number of Golf's, Escorts, Astra's etc that were doing the rounds without turbo's then, and some half decent examples of same are still around today. The move to Turbo / DI was as a result of the EU tightening down on emissions, and the way the technology needed to go to meet those limits necessitated introduction of Turbo / DI and a whole pile of electronics to manage same.

colm_mcm

Wasn't the Citroen ZX the proper decently powered turbo diesel family hatch, then the 306, Golf etc came later. I know VW had 1.6/1.9 TDIs in Passats and Jettas and Audi 80s but these were generally slow yokes.

woody33

Eek, now the mods are on my case! You might well wonder where I have been in the last 40 years, certainly not in showrooms buying new cars...Yep, I'd love a nice TDI of some type, but I would trade some refinement for reliability and lower servicing costs any day, so maybe no PD diesels just yet. I like new tech all the same, the little Fiat Twin Air is interesting.

unkel

shamwari wrote: »

The move to Turbo / DI was as a result of the EU tightening down on emissions, and the way the technology needed to go to meet those limits necessitated introduction of Turbo / DI and a whole pile of electronics to manage same.

That was 19 years ago

shamwari

Latest I can think of is Pug / Citroen XUD diesels sold without blower till '99, and Corolla sold with 1.9D unblown till around 2000 or '01. None were IDI.

Correct me if I'm wrong, none of these would be 19years old so, would they

shamwari

colm_mcm wrote: »

Wasn't the Citroen ZX the proper decently powered turbo diesel family hatch, then the 306, Golf etc came later. I know VW had 1.6/1.9 TDIs in Passats and Jettas and Audi 80s but these were generally slow yokes.

Indeed ! But the Pug's and Citroens were offered without the blower for some time.

unkel

shamwari wrote: »

Latest I can think of is Pug / Citroen XUD diesels sold without blower till '99, and Corolla sold with 1.9D unblown till around 2000 or '01. None were IDI.

Correct me if I'm wrong, none of these would be 19years old so, would they

Of course you were not wrong

My aim was to point out that modern turbo charged direct injection diesels have been around for a very long time. And it's funny that the OP, who knows his diesels, hasn't been aware of this

colm_mcm

Far as I know the toyota aygo had a non turbo 1.4d until recently.

woody33

"And it's funny that the OP, who knows his diesels, hasn't been aware of this" I don't know what gave you that idea .

unkel

woody33 wrote: »

I thought i knew a little about diesels

unkel

BTW, I'm only messin', woody. I remember the first time I drove a modern diesel myself (only about 10 years ago) - I too was impressed

woody33

Um yes, but I also knew "turbo charged direct injection diesels have been around for a very long time." Even the little VAG 1600 had a turbo in some cases.

colm_mcm

The 1.6td was indirect injection of course

r3nu4l

All joking aside, if you're on a normal road, not planting the foot to the floor and just pootling along in an already warmed up car, then yes, the most modern diesels can be surprising, very un-tractor like

woody33

"The 1.6td was indirect injection of course". Yep, thought it probably was. I liked the 1900cc TDIs but didn't want to pay the extra tax.

mickdw

I had a new astra diesel for a week or so recently. 1.4 diesel I believe. God the engine was terrible, ruined the car. Surprised by the chasis though. I found it pretty good.

peasant

shamwari wrote: »

Non-turbo IDI diesels were very much vogue just beyond the mid '90's. Look at the number of Golf's, Escorts, Astra's etc that were doing the rounds without turbo's then, and some half decent examples of same are still around today. The move to Turbo / DI was as a result of the EU tightening down on emissions, and the way the technology needed to go to meet those limits necessitated introduction of Turbo / DI and a whole pile of electronics to manage same.

Naahh ..the move to turbo was done because 60 odd PS out of 2 liters just wasn't good enough any more. Direct injection was also done primarily for power (or rather more efficient use of the same amount of fuel) and had been in use on trucks and heavier machinery for ages, long before emissions were ever really a topic. (My 89 2.4 Liter Iveco camper is a TDI ...only in those days the words "turbo" and "direct injection" were still proudly and fully spelled out on the back )

The emissions control (combined with ECU's and all that electronic crap) started later with the PD and CR diesels ...the first TDI's were all purely mechanical, non-electronic smoke machines