regardless of brand small engined turbo'd cars will only ever have a short engine life
due to them having the nuts rev'd off them to get them moving all day long ,car manufacturers
that take this easy route do it to reduce engineering time and associated costs
in the design stage of a new low emmision engine.
Well a turbocharged car will require less revs to move about unlike a NA motor like the Yaris's VVTi 1.0 which needed to be thrashed if you wanted go anywhere + its actually more difficult to engineer a reliable turbo engine.
You all talk of Honda as if they don't know how to make engines. They were probably the last to offer Diesel engine and are almost the last to offer Turbo motors.. not becasue they cannot do it but because they only do it properly. .
Honda didn't offer a Diesel earlier (until they were basically forced into doing it by market in Europe ) because Diesel had already been investigated in Japan and they decided way back that 'in the search for low emissions, Diesel is a dead end technology' (ie the Europeans were backing a dead horse to win a race) - the Japs actually fell out with the European legislators over this and Jap companies were banned from Euro emissions panels (we all know now, following Volkswagengate etc. that the Japanese were 100% correct) - direct injection petrol engines also suffer form high NOx outputs.
I have always seen bolting a turbo onto an engine as a shortcut to higher power but less reliability, but as many engine tuners around the world have know for decades, Honda engines are basically that well engineered you can bolt a turbo or supercharger onto them without any drama. Unlike most car engine makers Honda had the benefit of their superb motorcycle engine technology to make lightweight and powerful engines without resorting to forced induction, and blew away the old cast iron lumps with turbos on them being offered by other makers at the time.
SAAB (bless them) used low pressure forced induction as a way to reduce emissions, but SAAB never made a penny profit on any car they made and are now consigned to history of failed car-makers.
I agree 100% however that is besides the point. I was taking note of the blanket statement that a turbo engine will be less reliable & need a lot of revs to work.. it was the case with turbo cars of bygone era where the turbo lag was just endless. Current cars with LPTs are a different thing all together.
Ofcourse like a 2016 has more things that might go wrong compared to a 60s car with an engine gearbox and one dial but if you know Honda as a company, you know they don't make half hearted attempts. They are in the market to make money after all so rightly or wrongly the EU market demand forced them offer a Diesel and they did. Similarly if they have any hope of even maintaining their current market share let alone increase it, they needed to bring up a small turbo.
Designing a turbo engine from ground up is not the same as bolting a turbo onto an existing design. FK2 CTR is a turbo four pot. Can we really say its a compromised design? the VTEC, unlike every other Honda is actually activated at small revs and as the revs rise and the turbo comes on boost, the VTEC disengages so if done properly I don't think we have to worry about.
Contrary to general perception if you go to any CTR forum and you will find EP3, FN2s with as low as 80k on their NA iVTEC engines suffering from jumped chains due to abuse and improper maintenance. Now someone can stand up and say thats an unreliable motor? but no..we all know that is not true.
Not to say they don't know how to do turbos. USDM 2000s RDX and JDM City Turbo from 80s all benefited from forced induction.
But yeah I think the idea that Honda will engineer a compromised design just to meet market needs does not hold any credibility.
