Wet belts are something where I get the theory behind it, reduction in friction losses leads to efficiency increases, but it shouldn’t be implemented in practice because oil eats rubber, just use dry belts or chains like everyone else, or even geartrains like heavy truck engines or high-RPM race engines use, the idea behind geartrains for the former being greater long-term reliability than belts or chains, and the idea behind them for the latter being better responsiveness at high RPMs.
I get why manufacturers did it.Wet belt perishes outside warranty or after the lease contract ends. Customer ends up footing the bill and increased cost over a dry belt. Lower emission under test conditions for regulatory compliance.
This being said, I just replaced the belt on my vw at less than 150k km/ 93k miles and coming up on 10 years. VW recommends it. Some markets they recommend replacing it much sooner. That’s arguably a shorter interval than some wet belts. But it is much cheaper to replace than a wet belt, much much cheaper than a new engine, so a no brainer. (400E/$)
I’ll be glad to move to an electric car. Hopefully be able to avoid some of that nonsense.
And whatever efficiency increases you get from the friction loss reduction that wet belts offer are minuscule to boot, and probably won’t even show up on your fuel bill, I’m pretty sure Ford went this route with the 1.0 EB just to appease bean counters and the EPA.
That said, the idea to use an unbalanced flywheel to functionally replace a balance shaft and reduce engine weight is kinda cool, ngl.
I owned a Citroen with a 1.0TSI engine that was supposedly more efficient than the 1.4TSI in my VW. In reality the VW was and still is far more fuel efficient, even though it’s a significantly more powerful engine. Could be that the Citroen was shaped like a brick though. LOL.
Wet belts are something where I get the theory behind it, reduction in friction losses leads to efficiency increases, but it shouldn’t be implemented in practice because oil eats rubber, just use dry belts or chains like everyone else, or even geartrains like heavy truck engines or high-RPM race engines use, the idea behind geartrains for the former being greater long-term reliability than belts or chains, and the idea behind them for the latter being better responsiveness at high RPMs.
I get why manufacturers did it.Wet belt perishes outside warranty or after the lease contract ends. Customer ends up footing the bill and increased cost over a dry belt. Lower emission under test conditions for regulatory compliance.
This being said, I just replaced the belt on my vw at less than 150k km/ 93k miles and coming up on 10 years. VW recommends it. Some markets they recommend replacing it much sooner. That’s arguably a shorter interval than some wet belts. But it is much cheaper to replace than a wet belt, much much cheaper than a new engine, so a no brainer. (400E/$)
I’ll be glad to move to an electric car. Hopefully be able to avoid some of that nonsense.
And whatever efficiency increases you get from the friction loss reduction that wet belts offer are minuscule to boot, and probably won’t even show up on your fuel bill, I’m pretty sure Ford went this route with the 1.0 EB just to appease bean counters and the EPA.
That said, the idea to use an unbalanced flywheel to functionally replace a balance shaft and reduce engine weight is kinda cool, ngl.
I owned a Citroen with a 1.0TSI engine that was supposedly more efficient than the 1.4TSI in my VW. In reality the VW was and still is far more fuel efficient, even though it’s a significantly more powerful engine. Could be that the Citroen was shaped like a brick though. LOL.