Discuss! cylinder deactivation & GM's "skip shift" system

[Fummins]

Yup, it's ironic that many of these different ways of reducing emissions is making cars less reliable and more disposable. Somewhat off topic but I saw a clip yesterday that said they're banning plastic straws in Canada next year. Look a distraction!

[allrock]

Honda used cylinder deactivation on the 2005-07 Accord. The fact that Honda dropped that technology says something in itself. Honda is the largest engine maker in the world.

Honda also use to have a dual spark ignition engine on the CITY back then and yet they also drop it i wonder whey they spent money on RnD for this tech yet still come back with the plain and old design maybe conventional engines is really the most efficient design.

[7milesout]

Honda also use to have a dual spark ignition engine on the CITY back then and yet they also drop it i wonder whey they spent money on RnD for this tech yet still come back with the plain and old design maybe conventional engines is really the most efficient design.

Whatever is most simple will usually last the longest. Except maybe the ole Wankel engines. They are quite simple. Maybe if Toyota developed the hell out of them, they'd last. But they're not fuel efficient.

A had a daggone 2006 Honda Oddity. It had VCM. And it would deactivate I think the rear 3 cylinders. And during the activation, as per Honda, some kind of deep base ... beat, rhythm, noise whatever would play on the sound system to try to cancel the sound of the engine during VCM operation. I could feel the small jolt when it would activate. It wasn't bad. The wife never noticed. It was just gimmicky. In real life, what did it save me ... maybe 2%? The mpg increase at whatever level was not worth the complexity. On the interstate, it would cycle on, slowly drop speed, deactivate and the cruise control would gently bring the speed back up. Not as efficient as more accurately holding speed. It never broke though, the steering and transmissions were the weak point in the Odditys. I serviced that transmission out the ying-yang. Finally at about 175k miles it felt like it was just starting to do what those transmissions do when they begin to go bad. So I dumped it. Didn't really need it any longer anyway.

It was good while I had it, and I took good care of it. The dealers were HORRIBLE. They couldn't fix anything. Especially the sliding doors. It got to where they wouldn't open or close consistently and the dealers (all) were too dumb to know what to do. I wound up pulling off the side trims and installing new actuators, and those doors worked like butter again. Idiot dealers...