Breaking News: Mercedes-Benz and Bmw working on three-cylinder petrol engines

All hail the return of the Isetta!

Mitchel,
What have you been jamming down your smoke pipe?

Three-cylinder engines will be hugely unpopular in Merc's and BMW's. Big mistake.

Great, that's exactly what those Merc taxi cabs need.

Sorry Guys I prefer German cars all the way. But in small and cheap engines.....Japanesse are the best... If I'm wrong why most world Champions use Japanesse Bikes? Suzuki, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Honda. etc

WHY?!
I think it's by common sense that by the time 3-cylinder engine will be anywhere as powerful than today's 6-cylinder engines would be when auto enthusiasts prefer electric cars over conventional gasoline vehicles.

I thought benz already had a 3banger in the smart?

The Smart Four-Two sold in Canada until recently had a 3-cyl turbo diesel (they also have a CDI badge on the back) ... seems the newer gas-powered ones are 3-cyl as well. So you're right. And VW has 3-cyl. in Europe ... there was a 1.2 liter 3-cyl. TDI in the A2, IIRC, but not sure about 3-cyl. gas engines.

Apparently nobody here has been paying attention to the current trend in the business: downsizing.

Smaller engines in luxury cars are already trendy in Europe and are slowly catching on in the US. With rising gas prices and an uncertain future these cars are going to be in huge demand.

What's the average age of the Autospies poster? 12?

I'm not the first, and certainly won't be the last, to say a 3 cyl. is a bad idea....period.... They're so unstable, they require all kinds of weighting to make them stable, and once that's done, you're left with an overweight 3 cyl that can't perform and defeats the purpose of having a 3 cyl. in the first place.

You ought to forward your post to MB and BMW ASAP! They may not be aware of the physics involved!

By the 1930s the most powerful engines had 12, or even 16 cylinders, some supercharged and only put out around 160hp. Then as time and tecynology rolled by the engines lost cylinders and size and became more powerful. In the 70s smog laws and fuel shortages brougth the engines even smaller. During the 80s some of the smallest engiens were produced and let's be honest, the power that came from them was amazing. Buick GNX had a 3.8L turbo and put out 280 or so hp (officially, but we all know they were way more pwoerful than that). Even Chrysler was in the mix with cars like the Spirit R/T that had a 2.2L I4 that put out a claimed 224hp (so the insurance companies could stay calm). The natural progression of the engine is to go down on the size of the cylinders (so that eventually we will get to ZERO!) and up on the power. If 3 cylinders can get the job done at a fraction of the thirst, bring them on. I don't need to brag about how many cubic centimetres, number of cylinders, or number of gears my car has.

How many 3 cylinder superbikes do you know of? Bmw8ter is right, they are horribly balanced engines, keep it to 4 or 6 cylinders, just make the displacement smaller. If you need to downsize that much, put a streetbike engine in the car, they are super light weight, high revving and put out very good power numbers for the size. For instance, a stock CBR600RR gets about 118hp naturally aspirated! That's almost 200hp per liter without a turbo!

I think it's better if BMW and MB make a different brand and put all these 3 cylinder and 2 cylinder jokes under it.

JUGNU

Make mine an M3, Ha!!!!!!!

Get it?

3....

The only gain I see is production costs. The 3 banger is not only unballanced, I would like to see where it makes peak horsepower and morover the torque curve, when it peaks and how flat it is. This will determine the amount of models it could be used for. It would definately have to be force inducted which raises cylinder preasures that multiply the ballancing issue. I would rather see a small cc V6 with cylinder deactiveation, at least there is an opposing cylinder.

Well, BMW needs an engine for the .5 Series ;-.

There's nothing wrong with 3 cylinder engines guys. Just because it's not a rumbling V8 or howling V10 or V12 it doesn't mean it's not good for cars. This American mindset will never go away of course. Bigger is always better but the rest of the world think different. Economically friendly motors in cars that are driven everyday is not a bad idea. Lots of people drive hybrids and no body complains about the slow 0-60 times or the puny petrol engines bolted together.

It is actually funny. When there is a new idea, in the 10th of a second you will hear why it is not possible or why it doesn´t make sense.

Gentlemen, progress needs brave decisions and to strike a new path will always be a warm welcomed occasion for haters to spread their bullshit.

BMW and Mercedes are well known and honored all over the world for their deep knowledge in engine development. If somebody can make a 3 cylinder engine work properly, then it is definitely BMW and Mercedes, and even more so, when they concentrate their forces.

Oh sure, you can pump lots of money into a flawed design all you want to make it work decent, look at the 911, it's a rear engined car, they put enough time and effort into to make it a decent sports car, but the first GTR that raises it's head it get's spanked... most of the posts here are informed ones, nobody is saying they should stick to v8 v10 and v12's... just that a smaller 4cylinder engine will work better.

Brilliant post agent507. Closed minds = Small minds.

My first thought when I read about the new 3 cylinders was "This is probably bullshit like most things on this site, but if it's true I wonder what interesting and cool innovations they are going to come up with?"

NannerPus:

Thank you. What annoys me is, that when there is a new idea, it is easy to criticize it, but competence is shwon by coming up with your own ideas, not bei criticizing others. And if we always react in a defensive way when something that we are used to is getting changed, there will be no improvement.

We all know that we urgently need to be more independet from oil in the near future. Hybrids might be a way, but they still rely on oil. They are reducing fuel consumption. The same thing a 3 cylinder engine might also be capeable of. Thats my point.

Mercedes already has a 3 pot turbo engine used in the Smart. Should be enough to power a S Class Benz.

Look, its not all about logic. Maybe it should be, but its not. There are some things that people will just not accept regardless of how much they might make sense. Diesel engines come first to mind. No matter how clean they are, no matter how much power they have, no matter what you call them, Americans just ain't gonna buy them. Triples are in that same category.

Dear huu76,

reducing fuel consumption is progress, no matter how you achieve it.

As I wrote above, we need to get independent from oil. Hybrids might be a way, but they still rely on oil. They are reducing fuel consumption. The same thing a 3 cylinder engine might also be capeable of. Thats my point.

And my I ask you, why it is neccessary to state: "If BMW wants super fuel efficiency, stick one of their motorcycle engines in a car. Will drive just as bad ..."?

BMW´s don´t drive bad huu76, give credit where credit is due.

The Suzuki Swift (AKA Geo Metro from GM) had a 3-cyl. gas engine in normal and turbo models. It got better mileage than a Prius with a lot less material and environmental damage in its production. And the engines were smooth. But "it ain't no E-class/5-series!"

But think about this:
Currently most cars are V-6 or 4-cyl, requiring 2 heads, which are the most complicated, costly part of an engine.

But with a mix of V-6 and 3-cyl. you only need 1 cylinder head design. Saves cost on all engines!
Just like a BMW V-12 is 2x straight 6, and Bugatti Veyron 8-litre 16-cyl. is really just 4 Golf GTI turbo engines sharing a common crank (with 4 cylinder heads and 4 turbo chargers).

In fact, expect the new crop of 3 and 6-cyl. engines to share the same engine controller -- just 2 banks/heads/CPUs for the V-models.

IT MAKES ECONOMIC SENSE, AND RIGHT NOW THE BEAN-COUNTERS DICTATE DESIGN

Oh yeah: if you were going to put out a compact (3-series, c-class) with a GAS-HYBRID power-plant, you need a tiny engine to save fuel............

what's up with all the hate on this site...
can't you guys have a normal discussion about cars and possibly related subjects without all the drama? I mean unless you're involved in the development of any of the cars discussed i don't see any reason for getting worked up... After all they are all competing for the customers' approval (that's US!) so it's all the better for us!
as for the issue of instability, V is not a 'natural' layout and yet it seems to be working pretty fine in so many cars thanks to the wonders of engineering, and we're talking about BMW here, who wins some quite a few engine awards every year, and mercedes benz, whose engines are not known to be unrefined, so i'm guessing they'll work something up... last but not least, odd inline engines exist and there is nothing wrong with them (I-5)