Macan 2 litre 4 cyclinder announced

The delivery date of Feb is for LHD in London.

(26-04-2014 07:08am)mark_n Wrote:  The steering comparison may be down to the extra weight over the front wheels which tends to dull feedback but also the use of electric power steering compared to your (and mine) older 911.

When the Evoque AD comes out later this year, I'll be very interested to try it and see how much LR have managed to improve the steering/handling. The extra 44bhp will be very welcome too...

I wouldn't expect now to see a more powerful petrol engine in Evoque until 2017 when the new engines will start to trickle out of the new factory and certainly no V6 ever, it just won't fit in the enginebay. There is next to no demand for Si4 in the UK so there isn't a great incentive to make a more powerful and thirstier version of it unless everybody rushes out and starts ordering the current tune version. I wouldn't mind betting that engine sizes will go in the opposite direction - high output triples of which Ford has some particularly impressive examples in production, they have impressive refinement, bags of power, good economy and very low emissions.

(26-04-2014 11:07am)XFullFatTim Wrote:  I wouldn't expect now to see a more powerful petrol engine in Evoque until 2017 when the new engines will start to trickle out of the new factory and certainly no V6 ever, it just won't fit in the enginebay. There is next to no demand for Si4 in the UK so there isn't a great incentive to make a more powerful and thirstier version of it unless everybody rushes out and starts ordering the current tune version. I wouldn't mind betting that engine sizes will go in the opposite direction - high output triples of which Ford has some particularly impressive examples in production, they have impressive refinement, bags of power, good economy and very low emissions.

Interestingly the si4 is all we have here. Diesel and upmarket still doesn't mix here.

Interesting, is that an image problem or a legal/environmental concern?

After 1000 miles in my Si4 now the one thing I miss in the torque of my old car. The only thing I can think of that I would improve - in my experience so far, is to put in a compact low capacity turbocharged v6.

Basically image, though recently BMW have started to push diesel models, but no great take up as far as I can see.

Also, used to be that diesel cars were banned from Tokyo, so maybe a bit of brainwashing to undo. But manufacturers such as Mazda with their skyactive range and Nissan with clean diesel are beginning to make inroads.

To be honest I still have a Jeremy Clarkson attitude towards diesel but was shocked when I went back to the UK last time, everyone was driving one. I actually had a Volvo v70 rental (think that's the name - big estate with sporty intent) and that diesel changed my mind. The power was amazing and the deep growl as it delivered was a world away from the clacketty-clack of my childhood. Still, given the choice, petrol still owns a large portion of my image conscious mind. Haha. Forgive me!

There are health issues with the soot emitted from badly maintained diesel engines, especially those that have not been brought unto date with the latest emission controls.
One only has to go to places like India, Vietnam, West Africa, East Africa, Egypt to see what happens when ancient diesel engined vehicles are permitted to continue life long after they should have been recycled. Even here in the UK we have problems with badly maintained diesel engined cars, lorries and trucks that seem oblivious to the massive black cloud of soot some tow along behind them. Since the advent of the dreaded DPF though I think more and more people who live in urban areas and drive a diesel car are reconsidering the wisdom of buying a diesel engined car. I have been in London for the last 4 days and was surprised at how many Hydrogen powered buses I seemed to see - just a few years ago that technology would have been deemed way too costly to engineer into a commercial vehicle.

One point though - petrol/gasoline engines are not blameless for polluting - India banned certain makes of auto-rickshaws because of the pollution they caused - unfortunately they didn't force the owners to scrap them - they encouraged them to export them to many of the African countries.................... which now have terrible air pollution that they didn't have 15-20 years ago.

I tried to change the order of my new car from a diesel to the Si4 as my annual mileage is just below the break--even cost for diesel/ versus petrol and of late I have been flying up and down to London when I used to drive it. Not sure what the pollution figures of driving an efficient fully warmed through modern turbo-diesel are versus a modern jet engine powering a new Airbus A321 or Embraer70 commuter-jet are!

I'm back from a visit to Porsche in Leipzig where the Macan is built and I was able to test drive the Macan S (3.6l petrol) on their test track. Leaving aside the appearance of the car - which you either hate or think is fine/going on an improvement on the Cayenne - and the cost, there's no question at all that the Macan is both better made and a more sporting drive than the Evoque. The Evoque's time in the sun as the best premium compact SUV is over, at least in its current form.

The car offers much better and smoother performance than the Evoque from its V6 engine and, in a chase of other cars, I was able to keep up with a Boxster on the straights. Cornering is obviously not as good but the corkscrew corner they have on this track was handled tidily where an Evoque would have been all over the place.

The infotainment system is far superior to the Evoque's being more responsive and higher definition and the ability of one of the instrument dials to display a variety of operating modes - from additional gauges, navigation prompts, 4WD torque distribution, trip computer and so on - is very welcome. Everything else just seems to work and the atmosphere in the factory was electric, a real buzz of activity.

Coming back to the Evoque, it feels fine but it's a great pity the design offers so little scope to move the car into a higher performance bracket. No room for a V6 engine, a soggy auto box compared to Porsche's precise PDK, a roly-poly car which the current suspension cannot tame.

It's all irrelevant of course if you don't look to the Evoque to be a sporting drive; I do and I realise it will never deliver what I would like from it. Question is, is the Macan turbo a car to buy over the (slower) RRS 5.0 SC? Probably not, that car is likely to be the end of an era and worth going for but if I was coming into the market for a top of the range Evoque, I would certainly want to look at the Macan. LR's response to the Macan - assuming there is one - cannot come a moment too soon.

Sounds like you've already decided on the Macan then.