2010 VW Golf: Small 'TwinCharger' engine packs big punch

Jim Kenzie

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

WOLFSBURG, GermanY–There's a tantalizing VW engine you have not heard about or certainly cannot order now.

It's called the TSI TwinCharger, a 1.4-litre four-cylinder engine that has both a supercharger and a turbocharger.

2010 VW Golf: Makeover done right

Pardon me if I get technical a bit here, but a supercharger is an air compressor that blows more air into an engine. More air means more of the fuel can be burned, which means more power.

Strictly speaking any such device is a "supercharger." But we have come to use that specific term to describe a compressor that is driven mechanically off the crankshaft, usually by a belt.

If instead it is driven by an impeller sitting in the exhaust gas stream, it is, again strictly speaking, a "turbo-supercharger," usually shortened to turbocharger.

Each has its advantages. Typically, a supercharger delivers additional output at lower engine revs, while a turbocharger works best when the exhaust gas stream is flowing faster, generally kicking in around 3,000 r.p.m.

Put one of each on an engine, and you should have power all the time.

That's what Volkswagen has done with the TwinCharger – and power all the time is what you get.

Its 160 genuine German pferdestark horsepower, to be exact. The torque peak of 177 lb.-ft. arrives at 1500 r.p.m. and pretty much stays there all the time too.

These are numbers equivalent to engines with about half again as much displacement.

Smaller displacement means, among other things, lower internal friction, better fuel consumption and lower emissions than larger engines of comparable output.

This engine has been available in Europe for a few years now, and in the International Engines of the Year Awards program (yours truly is a juror), it is a perennial winner in its class.

Because it is a terrific engine.

Available in Europe in the new Golf, initially only with the brilliant Dual-Shift Gearbox (DSG), now with seven ratios, it propels the car from rest to 100 km/h in less than 8 seconds, and returns 6.3 litres/100 km (45 m.p.g.) on the European fuel economy cycle.

It is amazingly silent too. Again, the small displacement means lower vibrations, hence no need for heavy balance shafts to counter the washing-machine-full-of-walnuts sensation so common in larger fours.

You'd swear you were driving behind a 2.5 L inline six.

When I first drove this engine a couple of years ago, it needed European Super Premium fuel, with an octane rating around 98. Unless you can fill up at the aircraft tank (illegal, incidentally – not road-taxed) you won't find that anywhere in North America.

Further development has brought this down to about 94 octane for optimum performance – Sunoco is the only gasoline marketer that makes anything this high back home, but with anti-knock technology in place, the TwinCharger would run fine on any premium fuel.

Volkswagen claims that the dual-charge concept doesn't extract a huge cost penalty; the lack of balance shafts, for example, cuts costs while delivering the needed refinement.

Now, some carmakers, notably Mini, have come up with two-stage turbochargers that accomplish almost the same thing. The 1.6 L twin-scroll turbo Cooper S delivers 175 horsepower, equivalent torque and virtually identical fuel consumption with a six-speed manual transmission.

There's more than one way to skin the efficiency cat.

At the moment, VW has no plans to introduce the TwinCharger to our market. Displacement of 1.4 litres is extremely small by our standards and they'd never be able to put a rather unimpressive "1.4'' badge on the hatch lid, even if the performance would be more than acceptable.

But if the U.S. government ever decides that gasoline should no longer be free – and to make any sort of dent in auto-related CO2 emissions and improve overall fuel economy – there is no other possible way. Well, never say never.

2010 VW Golf: Makeover done right

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