Quote:
Originally Posted by DGthe3
But to merge with traffic or pass another car, you are only on the gas hard for a few seconds at a time. The amount of fuel consumed in that time is minimal. With a bigger, more powerful engine you might complete the manuever a little quicker, but durring that time you've also burned a lot more fuel. Remember that it takes X amount of gasoline to produce Y amount of power. So if you want twice the power, you need to burn twice the gas. Simple as that. Now it is true that a more powerful car would take less time to merge into traffic but durring that time its consuming more fuel. Your argument would work if and only if the more powerful car could make the pass in less than half the time -but the laws of physics say that it would always take more than half the time. So in the end the net result is that when you use more power you consume more gasoline.
If things were the other way around, sports cars would be more efficient than sub compacts. And I'm not even talking about say a Z06 vs a Corolla. How about a Mazda 2 vs Miata? They weigh about the same, both have 4 bangers, both are made by the same company, and you can get either of them with a 5 speed manual transmission. They're about as similar as you can get, with the main difference being the engine. But the much less powerful Fit (with the smaller engine) is substantially more efficient than its sporty counterpart.
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The way I'm seeing it is that I can stay in the lower revs with a 6 cyl or 8 cyl which in theory I'm not over exerting the engine thus using more gas. The 4 cyl to get any power you're in the higher revs and over exerting the engine and using more gasoline. Granted yes that the 4 cyl will be more efficient in other areas it just seems with it's loss in power and my current driving style that I wouldn't get the estimated mpg value of the car which would be my only reason for getting one so to me I'd have to change my driving style thus already would be more beneficial to do in my current DD in my Pontiac G6 w/ a Lx9 V6 than spend more money and buy a 4 cyl.
I guess I'm not really stating that the 4 cyl will get less mpgs compared with the V6 or V8, just wouldn't fit the reason why I would get one
I guess my point is mute in this thread carry on
