Volkswagen to Replace Inline-Five with 1.8-Liter Turbo Four in the U.S.

Volkswagen to Replace Inline-Five with 1.8-Liter Turbo Four in the U.S.:

Volkswagen will soon drop its naturally aspirated five-cylinder engine from its U.S. lineup and replace it with a turbocharged 1.8-liter four, two sources at the company have told us.

The new engine is a 1.8-liter version of the 2.0-liter turbo four VW offers in the GTI, GLI, and Tiguan—the engine family is EA888, if you’re the type that finds internal reference numbers of interest. In most of the 1.8′s European applications, it makes 158 hp and 185 lb-ft of torque. We don’t expect those numbers to change much when it arrives in the U.S., where it should become the workhorse engine for the Passat, Jetta, Golf, and Beetle. (It’s worth noting, too, that this new 1.8-liter turbo four is completely unrelated to the old “1.8T” engine that VW and Audi used across their lines during the 1990s and 2000s.)

The decision is at least partly based on fuel economy. A manual-transmission Jetta with the 2.5-liter five is rated by the EPA at 23 mpg city/33 highway. Compare that with the Jetta GLI, which is essentially the same car (save for the rear suspension) but uses the 2.0-liter turbo four: It is rated for 22/33 mpg. The installation of a smaller, less-powerful version of that 2.0-liter engine should bump the regular Jetta’s EPA figures enough to appeal to consumers seeing ads for 40-mpg Chevy Cruzes, Ford Focuses, and Hyundai Elantras.

The other large factor for switching to the 1.8 turbo is VW’s desire to simplify the manufacturing and service processes for its engines. As a close relative of the 2.0-liter, it can be built in the same factories, shipped in the same containers, installed with the same tooling, and maintained with the same equipment.

The 2.5-liter inline-five arrived in the U.S. in the previous-generation Jetta, which went on sale in 2005. It initially offered 150 hp, a number exceeded by many inline-fours from other automakers, and was subsequently upgraded to 170 hp. While offering a five-banger was certainly a rarity among automakers (with Volvo and Chevrolet also offering the layout here), sales of vehicles that offered the engine seem to have been achieved in spite of it, rather than because customers found it appealing in any way. The five was never particularly offensive, but we also can’t say we’ll miss it much.

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