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I've been looking at various new car options, and have been struck by the widely varying premiums for a 2.0 engine over a 1.6. So how much is it worth?

I am assuming the 1.6 litre engine produces 100-110 PS, and the 2.0 litre 140-150 PS.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I went for £250. In doing so, I assumed:

- No other associated spec changes except very direct ones like slightly bigger brakes.

- That we're talking about mid price vehicles, perhaps £9,000 to £16,000

In many real world cases, I'm quite sure that trim and standard equipment will tend to be upgraded with the engine option and sometimes premiums of up to £2,000 may well be justified.

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Paul Smith
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I said £500 assuming trim level remains the same. That said, i think it really depends on the engine in question - the 2L may be a super wonderful delux version offering many more bhp and improved fuel economy, in which case i'd pay more.

Interestingly, when I purchased my car a few years ago the £500 price difference increased to over £1000 as jamjar.com applied a more generous discount to the 1.6.

I went for £1k, on the basis that if you are paying c.£10k for a car then having another 30-40bhp on tap will make it a good 10% nicer to drive!

Three years ago we bought my wife a car with c.100bhp. This year we traded it in for another new model of the same car, but this time with another 40bhp. The difference is staggering, in that what was a fairly "numb" vehicle before comes alive and sparkles with that bit of extra performance.

In our case the price difference was about £4k, but there were a whole host of other things that came with it - as far as I can estimate the engine upgrade alone was worth about £800.

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