Modern turbo diesel engines are great. Small capacity, tiny consuption and LOTS of torque. Traditionally diesels have been slow, smoking piece of crap worthy of nothing but good mockering. Nowadays small sporty diesels such as Skoda Fabia RS or SEAT Ibiza TDI Sport are whooping ass of their petrol counterparts. Too bad here in Finland they tax the hell out of using diesel cars. In last years car magazines all over Europe have been posting petrol vs diesel tests between same car models and now it is my turn.
Let's take the BMW's new 1- series under scrutiny. 120d vs 120i is the name of the game. Now, there wouldn't be any fun in testing standard cars (as everyone can go to local BMW site and check the specifications) so I tweaked them a little bit. Actually I put on everything money can buy, except for the 120i i did the best N/A tune, not the turbo conversion. I wanted this to be a showdown for similar cars with totally different engine construction. Turbo diesel vs N/A petrol. I kept all the settings standard and used racing soft tyres for both. After oil change the figures were:
120i: 290 BHP @ 6200 and 361 NM @ 3600
120d: 277 BHP @ 4000 and 501 NM @ 2000
As you can see, the petrol engine gives slight edge in horsepower but diesel whoops it's ass in torque.
Carrol Shelby once said "Horsepower sells cars but torque wins races". Is that really so Mr Shelby?? Let's cut the crap and get these babies rolling!
Here are the contenders:
BMW 120d, The Snow White
BMW 120i, The Black Widow
First a quick spin at the testing park. I used auto gears (also during the races) and no driving aids.
0-400m
120i 12.930
120d 12.720
0-1000m
120i 23.454
120d 23.265
Ok, so the big D accelerates better. What does that tell about the performance? Very little, I'm afraid. It's racing time.
I took both cars to three different track and drove untill I had a solid lap. To minimize the human error factor I let my B-Spec driver to drive from 5 to 10 laps (pace 4) and recorded the best.
And btw, I know I'm just an average driver so you don't need to mock me by telling that you can do these tracks 30 seconds faster than me. I'm sure you can.
El Capitan
120i 1.47.370 (me), 1.50.990 (B-Spec)
120d 1.46.206 (me), 1.51.393 (B-Spec)
I chose El Capitan as a test track because... ummm... hmph... well, I just like it, no other reason. It does have lot of medium fast corners so I thought that the D could dominate here with it's massive torque. And it did. For some reason the B-Spec dude did .4 secs fasted time with the petrol one. I couldn't.
Sarthe II
120i 4.08.075, 4.09.669
120d 4.10.914, 4.11.459
Sarthe is all about top speed and the petrol BM had more of it. It could do 259 km/h, while the D settled for 247. Tweaking the gearing would have of course given much better times but I didn't wanna go there. Then the whole test would have been about setting skills and I wanted it to be about engine characteristics.
Nürburgring
120i 7.29.127, 7.45.895
120d 7.34.414, 7.53.005
Where are ALL german cars tested by the factory? At the 'Ring of course, so that's where the final showdown took place. And again the petrol one ruled. It just went faster on long straights and although 120d catched it somewhat during the twisty parts, it just wasn't enough.
Conclusion: 120i was faster in 13 events (counting B-Spec times as separate event) and 120d won 3 times. So the petrol is still the king of the hill, right? Not necessarily.
It was harder to record a fast, solid lap in 120i. In the bouncy high speed turns on the 'Ring and (the one in) El Capitan it was more difficult to control and spinned more easily. Overall it was more tail-happy than the diesel counterpart. I had to do more laps in the petrol one to get clean lap.
I don't know really about these two. I would call this one even. Both cars are so much fun driving. They handle like dream (altouhg 120d WAS better in that department), they are so well balanced even as standard.
It's 3.03 am here in snowy Finland and I should have been in bed 3 hours ago but I just couldn't go. I just had to try one more lap in the D to beat the P's time. These car are pure fun. Try it yourself if you don't take my word.
IRL I'd had the petrol, in GT4... Well, I have them both
Go on now and try them by yourself.
Go now, beat it. There's nothing to see here.
Let's take the BMW's new 1- series under scrutiny. 120d vs 120i is the name of the game. Now, there wouldn't be any fun in testing standard cars (as everyone can go to local BMW site and check the specifications) so I tweaked them a little bit. Actually I put on everything money can buy, except for the 120i i did the best N/A tune, not the turbo conversion. I wanted this to be a showdown for similar cars with totally different engine construction. Turbo diesel vs N/A petrol. I kept all the settings standard and used racing soft tyres for both. After oil change the figures were:
120i: 290 BHP @ 6200 and 361 NM @ 3600
120d: 277 BHP @ 4000 and 501 NM @ 2000
As you can see, the petrol engine gives slight edge in horsepower but diesel whoops it's ass in torque.
Carrol Shelby once said "Horsepower sells cars but torque wins races". Is that really so Mr Shelby?? Let's cut the crap and get these babies rolling!
Here are the contenders:
BMW 120d, The Snow White
BMW 120i, The Black Widow
First a quick spin at the testing park. I used auto gears (also during the races) and no driving aids.
0-400m
120i 12.930
120d 12.720
0-1000m
120i 23.454
120d 23.265
Ok, so the big D accelerates better. What does that tell about the performance? Very little, I'm afraid. It's racing time.
I took both cars to three different track and drove untill I had a solid lap. To minimize the human error factor I let my B-Spec driver to drive from 5 to 10 laps (pace 4) and recorded the best.
And btw, I know I'm just an average driver so you don't need to mock me by telling that you can do these tracks 30 seconds faster than me. I'm sure you can.
El Capitan
120i 1.47.370 (me), 1.50.990 (B-Spec)
120d 1.46.206 (me), 1.51.393 (B-Spec)
I chose El Capitan as a test track because... ummm... hmph... well, I just like it, no other reason. It does have lot of medium fast corners so I thought that the D could dominate here with it's massive torque. And it did. For some reason the B-Spec dude did .4 secs fasted time with the petrol one. I couldn't.
Sarthe II
120i 4.08.075, 4.09.669
120d 4.10.914, 4.11.459
Sarthe is all about top speed and the petrol BM had more of it. It could do 259 km/h, while the D settled for 247. Tweaking the gearing would have of course given much better times but I didn't wanna go there. Then the whole test would have been about setting skills and I wanted it to be about engine characteristics.
Nürburgring
120i 7.29.127, 7.45.895
120d 7.34.414, 7.53.005
Where are ALL german cars tested by the factory? At the 'Ring of course, so that's where the final showdown took place. And again the petrol one ruled. It just went faster on long straights and although 120d catched it somewhat during the twisty parts, it just wasn't enough.
Conclusion: 120i was faster in 13 events (counting B-Spec times as separate event) and 120d won 3 times. So the petrol is still the king of the hill, right? Not necessarily.
It was harder to record a fast, solid lap in 120i. In the bouncy high speed turns on the 'Ring and (the one in) El Capitan it was more difficult to control and spinned more easily. Overall it was more tail-happy than the diesel counterpart. I had to do more laps in the petrol one to get clean lap.
I don't know really about these two. I would call this one even. Both cars are so much fun driving. They handle like dream (altouhg 120d WAS better in that department), they are so well balanced even as standard.
It's 3.03 am here in snowy Finland and I should have been in bed 3 hours ago but I just couldn't go. I just had to try one more lap in the D to beat the P's time. These car are pure fun. Try it yourself if you don't take my word.
IRL I'd had the petrol, in GT4... Well, I have them both
Go on now and try them by yourself.
Go now, beat it. There's nothing to see here.
