Bentley gets bullish on turbo diesel engines

Weeks ago, we carried a story about legendary super luxury car maker Rolls Royce saying “thanks, but no thanks” to turbo diesel enginesas high roller, pun definitely intended, customers of the hallowed brand clearly decreed that the wafting petrol motors will be what they’d prefer in future Rolls Royces. Rolls Royce’s arch rival Bentley though has no such qualms about adopting turbo diesel power for its future product. The first Bentley to go turbo diesel will be the upcoming SUV that the Volkswagen group owned brand seeks to build in the coming years.

Bentley EXP 9F Concept SUV used as an illustration

And isn’t just the Bentley SUV which will use a turbo diesel engine. Bentley plans to use turbo diesel engines in its luxury saloon range as well. A 4 Liter, V8 TDI turbo diesel engine is expected to power Bentley’s range of luxury saloons and the solitary SUV. This engine is already offered on Audi luxury cars and crossovers. For Bentley though, expect even more sound proofing and vibration insulations though cutting edge engine mounting technology to ensure that the high levels of refinement expected by Bentley customers is achieved with this engine.

The Volkswagen group has traditionally been bullish on diesel power, which is a preferred engine option in its home market, Europe, as customers love the inherent fuel economy that a diesel engine in blessed with. Along with the higher fuel economy, modern day diesel engines that use a complex array of technologies like multiple stage turbocharging and common rail direct injection are extremely torquey and driveable. Also, modern day diesel engines comes with high levels of refinement with noise-vibration-harshness levels reduced to a bare minimum with advances in diesel engine mounting and insulating material technology.

It is these factors that have contributed to a super luxury car brand like Bentley, for whose customers refinement is a very high priority, betting big on turbo diesel power. Many modern day automobile brands, which once abhorred diesel power as being crude and ponderous, are now adopting it to power their high performance cars. For instance, Porsche powers its Cayenne SUV and Panamera Gran Turismo car with diesel engines. Audi too has a range of turbo diesel engines powering its cars even as twin turbo diesel engine is all set to power high end Audi models. BMW has a triple turbo inline six diesel engine that it uses in the much celebrated M-range of sedan and crossovers with the M550d sedan, the X5M and X6M models.

Source Car&Driver