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It’s the wrong engine .... discuss ...


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42 minutes ago, missingsid said:

This seems true of LR under Ford ownership as they seem to think that a vehicle lifetime is around 80k miles then it is someone elses problem.

I don’t think there can be many that do it differently ? 
 

Revenue for the manufacturers must stop pretty soon after the second owner?

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1 hour ago, Anderzander said:

Revenue for the manufacturers must stop pretty soon after the second owner?

Revenue will continue so long as they provide service and spares, but the returns vs. the capital costs will reduce dramatically. Current vehicles are designed to be disposable and the law only requires a limited period for spares availability. Mass production is a sausage machine, so goes hand in hand with planned obsolescence. 

"Durable" vehicles like the Ford Model T, original Beetle, Morris Minor, Defender, MGB, VW Type 2 etc. are accidental and rarely contribute much to the original manufacturer. (Although they seem happy to mine the PR outcomes).

As for the engine choice; they are going to buy it in, as no one in their right mind would build one from scratch for 25,000 vehicles a year, too many for exotics and far too few for bulk production. In a limited market, BMW seem as good as any; Morgan have put on record their appreciation of the engineering support provided by BMW for the Aero, Aero 8, +4 and +8.

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27 minutes ago, jeremy996 said:

 

As for the engine choice; they are going to buy it in, as no one in their right mind would build one from scratch for 25,000 vehicles a year, too many for exotics and far too few for bulk production. In a limited market, BMW seem as good as any; Morgan have put on record their appreciation of the engineering support provided by BMW for the Aero, Aero 8, +4 and +8.

Obviously, they would have shopped around and considered every possibility before settling on BMW.  Personally, I've long thought a 3litre straight six would be ideal for a Land Rover, so it's nice to see that in this competing vehicle.

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52 minutes ago, Anderzander said:

... agreed - and I would think by the 2nd and 3rd owner most are out of the hands of the main dealer and likely using pattern parts to boot.

That depends on the pricing policies of the vehicle manufacturer; pitched carefully a pattern supply would never happen except at woeful quality. Take a margin by all means, capitalism requires it, but don't exploit your original customers loyalty. Morgan used to do this well, (back in the days of Peter Morgan), but now its just another profit centre.

My experience of LR parts is too many pattern parts are so poor as to be overpriced! That said all vehicle manufacturers seems to have a problem with outright fake parts

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Once operating costs become a major concern (sensible to contain) then quality can drop.

In my personal experience:

Series LR chassis last decades mine is 65 years old and still good.

RRC 2 door chassis last maybe 15 years as do Defenders and Discovery 1/2

Discovery 3/4 the chassis are great but under Ford ownership the fixings are chocholate steel and parts are crumbling plastic each only and last 10 years.

 

Then again aftermarket plastic parts last 6 months!

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On 9/6/2020 at 12:07 AM, deep said:

The word "greens" means different things in different places but there is no excuse at all, in this world where information is freely available, to not live in a way that respects our environment.  Wood fires emit carbon dioxide that has only recently been fixed by plants.  Those plants are usually replaced, making wood fires carbon neutral.

That’s a myth - it takes decades to grow a tree but hours or even minutes to burn it.  The rate of wood consumption for fuel is thousands of times faster than plant growth to replace the fuel or absorb the carbon from the atmosphere.

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25 minutes ago, Snagger said:

That’s a myth - it takes decades to grow a tree but hours or even minutes to burn it.  The rate of wood consumption for fuel is thousands of times faster than plant growth to replace the fuel or absorb the carbon from the atmosphere.

Its going to be a cold winter ...

Mo

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1 hour ago, Snagger said:

That’s a myth - it takes decades to grow a tree but hours or even minutes to burn it.  The rate of wood consumption for fuel is thousands of times faster than plant growth to replace the fuel or absorb the carbon from the atmosphere.

Ooh, someone needs a lesson in basic mathematics!  Say it takes a tree 100 years to mature.  Take 1% of the trees in the stand each year and you won't run out of firewood.  In my case, I only take windfalls or trees my neighbours cut down for other reasons.  I wouldn't actually kill a tree for firewood but I'm happy to steal the fuel before insects and fungi use it.  The tree is going to give up it's carbon regardless.

I'm pretty sure we're a long way off topic, so I'll leave it here unless poked with a big stick...

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9 hours ago, deep said:

Ooh, someone needs a lesson in basic mathematics!  Say it takes a tree 100 years to mature.  Take 1% of the trees in the stand each year and you won't run out of firewood.  In my case, I only take windfalls or trees my neighbours cut down for other reasons.  I wouldn't actually kill a tree for firewood but I'm happy to steal the fuel before insects and fungi use it.  The tree is going to give up it's carbon regardless.

I'm pretty sure we're a long way off topic, so I'll leave it here unless poked with a big stick...

Big stick - I see no harm in using dead wood, since it’s going to decay and release gasses anyway, though if all the forest floor is scavenged, that will kill off a lot of the insect and fungi, which will have a knock on effect.  But the reason your “basic mathematics” isn’t a major problem is that few people in the west use log burners.  Go to India, where most rural people are burning wood, and you’ll see a completely different scenario, where visibility is seldom more than a mile and a half because of continuous smoke over the whole continent, all the way up to between 5000 and 8000 feet.  It’s so bad in Delhi that schools are often shut and people wear masks all year round (before the Covid problem).  Wood burning is neither clean, nor sustainable if a large portion of the population do it.

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I like BMW IL6 lumps. They are generally reliable and simple to service. Sensor fails order another, fit it.

In reality new vehicle in Africa belong to militia, smugglers, gun runners, senior government officials and NGO's. You run a farm in Kenya, you buy a Hi-lux up to Mk 5 or a Land Rover Defender up to 300tdi. That's if it's a big farm and makes shed loads of money. You buy a disposable vehicle that you already have loads of broken ones in the yard. It's not engines that fail, or gearboxes. It's chassis or axles.

NGO's buy disposable vehicles - mainly form Toyota. Finish using one, send it back to Gibraltar, it gets fixed and rented out again

All the rest are dodgy folk with shed loads of money - they don't care.

Produce 25K vehicles a year - ho wmany are actually going to see Africa? less than 10% on a good year.

Where you will see them is Russia and the former Soviet states, South America and Murica. So excellent engine choice

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Parts of Africa like simple.  Dar Es Salam has hundreds of Series LRs, far more than Defenders or Discovery’s, and a lot of them still work as recovery trucks.  I have seen relatively few Defenders in Dar, Nairobbery, Luanda or Entebbe - the Japanese vehicles dominate there, with rich folk buying G-Wagens.  SA has a bit higher Defender representation, but still not much.

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  • 1 month later...

https://www.ineos.com/news/ineos-group/ineos-launches-a-new-clean-hydrogen-business-to-accelerate-the-drive-to-net-zero-carbon-emissions/

It looks like Ineos is going down the hydrogen route for future stored energy.

As they already have a tie with BMW it will be interesting to see whether they go down the fuel cell or the BEV route for Grenadier in the future. BMW have in the past shown fuel cell, BEV and hydrogen combustion powered vehicles, so there could be some choices for powertrains.

That will confuse the petrol/diesel zealots!

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48 minutes ago, Snagger said:

One of the big issues with hydrogen is making the system leak-free - hydrogen is a very small atom, so very hard to seal in.

That and many other issues.  On the other hand, you don't have to mine it, transport it very far or worry about dumping it when you're finished with it.  It has to be worth pursuing as all other electric options are very naff.  I look forward to seeing the problems overcome so that we have a realistic alternative to carbon based fuels.  I also look forward to home generation so we can stop building those destructive, large-scale power schemes.

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2 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

I have always been sceptical of hydrogen as a fuel for cars, it brings numerous difficulties and honestly right now it feels like the far simpler battery EV is going to look way more attractive to most consumers than hydrogen.

They only seem like a short term Solution to my very unexpert eye. Hydrogen seems like it could be a more long term solution as Deep says.

Edited by reb78
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Almost no hydrogen is made commercially by electrolysis, almost all is made by reforming methane at the moment. Hydrogen has been suggested as the basis for a "battery", storing excess renewable electricity when we have a surplus on the grid, (as has compressed air). It all seems plausible, but the energy cost of making hydrogen then making electricity/driving an IC engine seems high compared to just sticking it into a BEV battery. 

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3 hours ago, Snagger said:

One of the big issues with hydrogen is making the system leak-free - hydrogen is a very small atom, so very hard to seal in.

Hydrogen embrittlement of metals is a problem too - dude in the states blew himself up storing hydrogen in steel tanks. They were fully pressure rated (welding gas sort of tanks) but after a while they just... exploded :ph34r:

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Personally I think it might be better to think less technical. 

The world is going downhill in a handcart. Modern engines are service dependent in order to provide the dealer network with manufacturer financial support.  This will soon prce itself out of the market.

Electric vehicles are not a solution, merely an extension of a non sustainable society, so an evolutionary dead end

Fossil fuel is seen by many as Satan's own wind. The press have done a very good job of frightening society, but in reality the bulk of pollution form hydrocarbons and particulates is produced by big commercial engines and operations and (sorry Nick) excess use of aircraft

Fuel mining from waste plastic is available, now and in highly portable units - one of the four products reclaimed will burn happily in non fuel rail engines, one is an excellent non soap based grease, one is good to fuel powerstations and one can be refined to make a petrol substitute.

Waste oil is readily available to fuel non fuel rail engines - although first use plant oils are simply not efficient enough on production

Methane engines are realatively efficient, and can be retrofitted to simple engines

But you can't fit a non Euro 6 compliant engine in a new vehicle. Most Grenadiers will be used to do a job - not as a toy. Commercial fuel requirements are very different to toys. Reliability is essential. Economy is important. Engine life through understress is important; ease and cheapness of maintenance is essential.

If I was Mr Radcliffe, I would be offering a choice of engines for my commercial clients. I like the Beemer idea - but what happens to the BMW diesel when run on sulphur rich fuel? I don't know. I do know that the reason you buy Iveco vans to go to far of places is becuase an Iveco dealer can easily and cheaply re-programme your engine to run on high sulphur fuel. VW can't and MB will need to sell you a Powermaster 2.8/3.0 Tdi for your sprinter, so you can...  And that's just a 2.8TGV...  Mind a 606 won't run on veg oil, nor will a 605 or a 604, but a 603 will, but it's carp.

But I'm not a multi billionaire low volume 4x4 producer.

I do know that RED winches have been chosen to supply the Ineos winches - not Warn. So Mr R has some sense

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On 11/10/2020 at 10:53 PM, FridgeFreezer said:

Hydrogen embrittlement of metals is a problem too - dude in the states blew himself up storing hydrogen in steel tanks. They were fully pressure rated (welding gas sort of tanks) but after a while they just... exploded :ph34r:

On 11/10/2020 at 7:15 PM, Snagger said:

One of the big issues with hydrogen is making the system leak-free - hydrogen is a very small atom, so very hard to seal in.

Both of those are big issues with Hydrogen, Although I'd not thought about the cylinders.... all of our Hydrogen and Deuterium cylinders look like the exact same construction as the Air/Arogon/Neon/Helium etc. However all of our Hydrogen and Deuterium systems are 316 Stainless throughout and the systems are leak tested to have a (helium as the test gas) leak rate of less <1x10e-9mbarL/s... Which if I remember the analogy correctly, would take 300 years to pump all the gas out of a cigarette lighter :lol:.

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5 hours ago, landroversforever said:

Both of those are big issues with Hydrogen, Although I'd not thought about the cylinders.... all of our Hydrogen and Deuterium cylinders look like the exact same construction as the Air/Arogon/Neon/Helium etc. However all of our Hydrogen and Deuterium systems are 316 Stainless throughout and the systems are leak tested to have a (helium as the test gas) leak rate of less <1x10e-9mbarL/s... Which if I remember the analogy correctly, would take 300 years to pump all the gas out of a cigarette lighter :lol:.

The engineering is perfectly possible, but it is expensive (it’s one of the big issues for the space industry and one of their big costs), and maintenance would be too, with extensive training and recurrent requalification for repair technicians.  It’ll make motoring much more expensive than BEVs.  The maritime industry, on the other hand, may be able to do this economically, for freighters and tankers, maybe even smaller, shorter range ships like ferries.

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