Those residing in Australia will be treated to a much different animal when it comes to the 2018 Holden NG Commodore. Taking the shape of the Opel Insignia Grand Sport, Vauxhall Insignia Grand Sport and 2018 Buick Regal Sportback, the Commodore is the fourth iteration of vehicle riding on General Motors E2XX platform.
However, as Holden has promised, some things are exclusive to the Australian market. That includes the Commodore’s 3.6-liter LGX V6 engine. And while North America is treated to a four-cylinder-only lineup for the 2018 Regal, the Commodore Tourer, our Buick Regal TourX, will also receive said V6 engine.
Following the reveal of the Holden Commodore Tourer, we reached out to the brand to elaborate on powertrains available for the most rugged variant of Commodore.
“The Holden Commodore Tourer is all-wheel drive, which for [Australia] means the 3.6-liter V6” will be powering the vehicle exclusively, a Holden spokesperson said. Meanwhile, the already-confirmed four-cylinder turbos and a turbo diesel will be available for the regular Commodore and Commodore Sportwagon as well.
As of the Regal TourX’s reveal, all-wheel drive is standard, but the sole engine offering will be a 2.0-liter LTG turbocharged four-cylinder when it arrives in the fall.
Holden lobbied hard to ensure the range-topping Commodore arrived with a sporting virtue, which led to the AWD, V6 powertrain. As for North America, we’ve heard mumblings over a V6 making its way under the hood of the 2018 Regal, but no concrete information has surfaced as of yet. It’s possible the next Regal GS may receive a V6 engine, as one engineer alluded to once before, but Opel has stated its next Insignia OPC will likely arrive with a four-cylinder turbo.
Comments
Why not give people the choice of engine, the could also offer the 1.5 turbo and a diesel one.
Another topic, why not a Malibu or Cruze break or AWD with all terrain availability to face the golf all road break
If you check any site that tracks real world fuel economy there is no difference between the 2.0 Turbo and 3.6 NA and with the added turbo I doubt there’s much cost savings…..so, this is all for the EPA and their erroneous fuel economy estimates.
My fleet of 74 x 3.6L V6 NA cars is averaging 14 cents a km – I’m not sure how that compares to 2.0L turbo I4 cars as I don’t have any in the fleet. I do have 3 x 1.6L turbo I4s which are averaging 10 cents a km. So extrapolating the turbo’s fuel consumption to a 2.0L turbo I couldn’t reliably say if the 2.0L turbo is 40% worse in fuel consumption (10c/km to 14c/km) over the 1.6L turbo to match the 3.6L V6. My educated guess would be that 2.0L turbos would run 25% more expensive than 1.6L turbos ie. the variation in displacement (all things being equal). Therefore I would expect a fleet of 2.0L turbos to run at 12.5 cents per km which would be less than 3.6L V6’s current average.
OK, So one of the sites has the same exact vehicle. Cadillac CTS. The 2.0 is reporting 4 vehicles with 86 tanks of gas monitored and the average is 21.2 MPG. The 3.6 is reporting 3 vehicles and 42 tanks of gas monitored and the average is 22.4 MPG. Small sampling…but to get larger sampling size you have to compare different vehicles of similar sizes and weight with these same engines, yet the end result is still the same.
If it was purely a comparison on cost I’d have the fleet all running 1.6L turbos; it’s a substantial saving over about 1.2 million kms annually. But my heart is with the 3.6L NA V6, there’s a really nice torque driving feel (even two or three up), smoothness at highway cruise speeds and peppy acceleration. Also GM are more advanced in V6 NA development than I4 petrol turbos, so the reliability & finesse of the V6 wins for now.
How silly. We are still in Obama mode with all this ridiculous Cafe nonsense and the unreachable 54 MPG by 2020 standard. I’d be willing to bet the new LGX with stop/start and cylinder shutdown actually gets slightly better MPG than the 2.0T which will have to work harder on the highway to keep this heavier vehicle moving. The V6 should be available at least as an option.