They can publish whatever the heck they want. Just like Japan Inc does in Japan with their high performance cars. Isn't there a rule that cars aren't supposed to have over a certain hp from the factory so cars like the Skyline GTR, Supra, and RX7 are grossly underrated?

Yeah because we all did that when the GT500 dyno graphs started showing up? Please, just admit it the Cobalt puts out more than advertised just like the long list of cars that I mentioned in my previous post. Admit that the 200 hp Sentra, which as Joe pointed out, will likely cost around $20K is not as good of a deal as the SC Cobalt SS or Ion Redline. Also you should admit that the 177 hp Sentra SE-R isn't a killer deal at $18K when you can get a 172 hp Cobalt SS non SC for around the same price, likely within $1,000.

 

Well if "we don't really care" about some "G@Y nissan crap" then why are "we" posting so much about it?

If GM doesn't want its potential customers to believe the HP figures it publishes and use those figures as a basis for comparison to other vhicles those potential customers may be considering then perhaps it should post accurate figures.

 

I think I figuired out who Robert_Nashville is...REDZED!!!

 

In the U.S. manufacturers can (and I'm pretty sure have been) sued for knowingly misrepresenting data it publishes about the vehicles it sells.


I didn't say the Sentra was a "killer deal"...all I responded to was a claim that 250+HP was now suposed to be the standard. It may be the standard for vehicles with forced induction and prices north (and in some cases well north) of $20K but that isn't whre the SE-RV is slotted.

 

Those issues were when the car underdelivered compared to its rated power (such as the N/A Mustang Cobra in '96, I think).

I think the revised SAE standards are supposed to prevent overrating AND underrating of the engines, but I don't think the 2.0L S/C has had its rating revised under the new standard (since the engine came out just before the new standard went into effect).

For all the GM engines, the only one I am aware of with a rating that went down slightly is the 300 hp fwd Northstar, which changed to 293. All the other ratings that I am aware of either stayed the same or went UP slightly. On the other hand, both Toyota and Honda had engines go down under the new standard.

Who is going to sue if an engine is rated at 205 hp but really makes 225-230? On the other hand, if it were rated at 230 hp but only made 205, then they'd have a reason to sue. Think of it as getting 7 bagels in a packaged marked as six. Are you going to bitch? Of course not, unless you are a psycho. But if you only got 5, you'd have something to bitch about...

That said, I hope the practice of underrating goes away as all the future engines are rated using the new standard. I'd prefer accuracy.

 

Holy crap this is still going?

Pretty pathetic when you have a 4-page thread about a compact Nissan.

Robert, you seem to have the same kind of complex about Nissan that you claim we do about the media's treatment of the domestics. I don't at all understand where you're coming from about dyno numbers and not believing them vs. rated HP....if real world results don't convince you I don't know what to say.

In closing, sport compacts aren't really my thing but I can tell you if they were, the Sentra would still be farther down the list from the (Neon) SRT-4, Civic SI and yes, even Cobalt SS. The impression I get of the previous Sentra was that it lagged far behind Honda and Toyota in the compact market, I'd want to see if this one will be different.

Oh by the way, my SS was factory rated at 325 HP. I have the window sticker saying as much. See how much it put down at the wheels bone stock with 12,000 miles in my sig (not even the aftermarket airlid was on at the time). You'll find thousands more real-world ("doesn't count" in your world) examples.

 

 

I can't speak for GM specifically but most manufacturers spend a significant amount of money and time testing their engines to ensure they are getting the HP/Tq they claim...so yes, when it comes to general discussions about a vehicle line, I’ll take what a manufacturer publishes over “personal owner's experience”.

If the manufacturer is willing to lie about its own HP/Tq ratings then why should it be believed about anything it publishes about its products?

We can agree on at least one thing - I have no significant interest in econo-boxes regardless of how “dressed up” they happen to be…nothing against those who are interested in them but none of those vehicles are on my “must have” list.

 

Yeah, with what, eight pound-feet of torque? Great.

The QR25DE (the engine in the previous generation SE-R) was not designed with much extra tolerance. Last I heard, it would take massive upgrades of the engine internals to handle 3psi of boost. So you don't exactly just "throw a turbocharger/supercharger" on it. I don't know what changes they've made for the MR25DE (the new one), but let's not make assumptions, ok?.

How many individual experiences does it take before you believe? Do you believe that LS1 F-bodies were underrated at 305/310hp?

 

Anytime a person is evaluating a “fact”, where that fact came from/how it was arrived at/the biases of the source and other factors all play a part in determining how much weight to apply to it. Just as in researching sources for a formal document (thesis, dissertation, etc), some sources are simply more valid/carry more weight than others while yet some other “sources” have no place in such a document at all.

I understand that this is just an enthusiast forum but it is still reasonable to apply some sort of “weighting” to the “facts” that get thrown around a forum like this.

Personal experiences are fine but they really don’t have a lot of value beyond that person because there is simply no way to validate what any person or even a large number of people claim…dyno runs are ok but how is someone who wasn’t there/doesn’t know that personal and his/her car well going to substantiate that the vehicle being run is truly stock or truly representative of all vehicles like it???

When I know someone (and his/her car) well, I’ll give much more weight to his personal experience because I already have good reason to trust him …it would be foolish, at best, to make that assumption about people I don’t know. In cases like that, I’ll put much more weight on the “facts” published by the manufacturer than a bunch, even a large bunch, of personal experiences.

I don’t know if GM underrates what it publishes about its engines or not…MY personal experience with my 2000 Z28 would lead me to believe that the stated HP/Tq were at least reasonably accurate. I also can’t help but wonder WHY GM would purposely underrate its engines…how do they really benefit by rating an engine at 205HP if it’s really typically putting out 240???

Again I ask, and not rhetorically, if GM is willing to lie about the HP/Tq ratings for its engines; why should anybody believe anything it publishes about any of its vehicles???

I suspect GM has far more to loose by misrepresenting its HP/Tq numbers than it does by being honest about them…that said, I’ll continue to attach far more weight to the data GM published than the personal experiences of individuals…if that means I’m not “living in the real world” in the opinion of some, so be it.

 

I have to say, you're probably the only person who would think this way.

Why did GM underrate the LS1 in the F-bodies? Why do they underrate the supercharged Ecotec? Insurance could have something to do with it. "Sleeper effect" may have something to do with it. Fact is, domestics have been playing the "wink wink" game when it comes to horsepower since the 60's. It is said to be a joke that the legendary L88 in the Corvette put out "only" 435 HP. Same with a lot of the GM Ford, and Mopar motors of the time. Think about it, if you give the competition an accurate HP target to shoot for, you're almost doing yourself a disservice. So you rate the car 20, 25 HP less than what it actually makes. You've suckered the competition into aiming low.

It's a real stretch to assume that because a manufacturer underrates its motors that it somehow "can't be trusted" when it talks about everything else on the car. You make it sound a hell of a lot more sinister than it really is.

At any rate, any LS1 F-body owner will tell you the factory numbers were low. Unless you want to make the argument that chassis dynos are not accurate.....but even LS1s on engine dynos put out more than advertised.

 

If they were overpromising and underdelivering, that would be one thing. As I mentioned, Ford had an issue with this with the Mustang Cobra at one point. It was embarrassing, but Ford did the right thing and took care of the owners. Mazda also had an embarrassing issue with the Miata a few years later. I think they also took it on the chin and also took efforts to make it up to the owners.

Within GM, at least in the past, there were reasons (such as Corvette needing to be "top dog") that the small blocks were given different ratings in those cars, even if they weren't so different in real life. But again, they were not OVERstating Corvette numbers, they were understating slightly the numbers in the F-cars. It is my personal belief, based on actual dyno data I've seen at GM in the Warren tech center dynos, that the small blocks were not quite equal in F-car tune compared to Corvette tune. But they were not making 40 hp less than the Vette, either.

As for the Cobalt, I'm really at a loss as to why it is underrated, but that does seem to be the case. It's acceleration numbers seem to back up the 230-ish hp number that some people are clinging to. When several owners take their cars to tracks, or take them to dynos and put down 200 hp at the wheels, the engine is clearly making a bit more than 205 at the crank. Of course, one can call in to mind the accuracy of some dynos (I have often wondered if dyno operators don't err on the high side to make customers happy with the experience, based on the aforementioned F-car LS1 dyno numbers that are often quoted). But surely not all of them read high, and there are lots of people posting dyno numbers of 200+ wheel hp for the Cobalt SS and Ion RL.

I certainly understand what you are saying. You'd think the manufacturer's numbers should be spot on. On the other hand, I used to personally assume the Titan's 5.6 was underrated, because it is one of the quicker full size pickups, even against the Hemi Ram, which makes the same tq as the 5.6 but is rated at ~30 more hp. Of course, when the 5.6 was rerated under the new standards, its power numbers did go up, but not as much as I thought it would. I guess the 5.6 was slightly overrated, but it was that plus the gearing of the 5 speed auto and the slightly lower curb weight that helped it be quicker than the heavier but more powerful Ram.

Again, I think the new standard is supposed to prevent underrating AND overrating, so we should be able to compare apples to apples...

 

Another reason GM underrated the LS1 Camaros is because there was (and to a lesser extent, still is today) a general rule at GM that nothing could outperform the Corvette in any way related to performance.

This is at least part of the reasoning behind the deaths of the Typhoon, Syclone, Fiero, and Grand National, as well as the reason for the underrated horsepower in LS1 F-bodies.

 

A couple more thoughts…

The “insurance” argument for why GM would underrate its engines I don’t think can stand up under scrutiny…the insurance industry is a huge industry and has the financial wherewithal to do its own testing of vehicles to determine what HP/Tq cars, especially performance oriented cars, are putting down…publishing such “facts” forty years ago may have fooled some insurers for a short time but I highly doubt such would be the case today.

If I'm wrong about that I wonder if there is someone within the insurance industry here who could shed some light???


The specific argument about the F-bodies (and others) not being “allowed” to beat the top-dog Corvette holds more water but still has some problems not the least of which is that in today’s world it is quite easy for a manufacturer to take the exact same engine and, in different applications, allow it to develop different HP/Tq numbers. So; it's perfectly possible for the LSx engine in the Corvette to develop more HP than the same exact engine is allowed to develop in a Camaro SS.

Also, while I haven’t spent a lot of time on the Corvette enthusiast sites, I have spent some time there and they seem to make the same claim (that GM underrates their engines) so I think one must ask, just how “underrated” were the LS1s? If the 350HP in the base C5 was underrated then just what was the LS1 in the Z28/TransAm putting out?...pretty soon it just becomes a bit unbelieveable.

One last thought, back in ’77 (I think), the Chevy half-ton with the 454 was actually the fastest production made in America; even faster than the “Vette!

 

Rob, your right the INS argument doesn't hold water. Insurance rates are based on owner histories, class of vehicle, and saftey record. In addition to the buyer base of the vehicle. I don't work in insurance but I think everyone here can agree with that, that is why the Corvette is cheaper to insure than an Fbody despite the fact that the Vette costs more to buy and repair.


The Corvette LS1s weren't underrated only the Fbody ones. Because there was and is NO reason to underrate the Corvette LS1s.

As far as the 454 1/2 tons being faster, sure it could have been there are several GM cars that were, but was it rated higher in HP? No. The GN-X, TTA, Sylcone, and Typhoon were all faster than Corvette but NONE were rated higher in HP. Can't you just possibly see the point that the rest of us see plainly. Open your eyes Robert GM underrates certain HP numbers. Nobody gets hurt but the competition who is trying to place their vehicles in competition. If the competition thinks the # is 205 and puts out a model with 210 and it turns out GM's 205 hp is actually 225 then the GM is faster AND owners are happy because they got more than they thought they would. It is REALLY simple.