Quote:
Originally Posted by formare
SAE rating system is the minimum rating any tested production engine in the series will have. Seems to me this means production engines will have more than the stated minimum to avoid litigation - such that appended to Ford a while back.
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Yes and no. Engines are supposed to produce approximately the advertised power. There is a window of acceptance that the average is supposed to fall within (I think its 2%). The automaker is free to be greedy or conservative with where they choose to pick their advertised point. But it is not a minimum output. I'm sure that there are parts of the SAE testing procedure that dictate the distribution curve, determining things like how many engines have to fall close to the advertised power and how many can be somewhat beyond it (either high or low) and how far beyond the averge those outliers can be. I'm sure its on the conservative side as a whole, but it can't be too far off centre either.
At any rate ... does BMW even use the SAE power ratings for their cars? Manufacturers are under no obligation to use it & can follow their own test procedures if they want to. They just can't say 'with an SAE certified XXX hp' when talking about their cars