If you own a car or you are familiar with various aspects of automotive world, then you have heard about inline and V6 engines many times. You might have noticed that generally small cars are equipped with an inline 4-cylinder engine and most luxury cars get V6 engines. But, have you even thought about how different are 4-cylinder engines from the V6 engines? Well, to know the difference, you must understand how does an engine work first.

To be very precise, all types of engines are designed to work in the same typical manner. Engines do have a piston which is instrumental in compressing and releasing a mixture of fuel and air to create pressure. Then, the alternative motion of the piston makes the crankshaft to turn. The mixture of fuel and air inside the engine is ignited by a spark plug to create combustion, which ultimately power the engine to move the car.

Generally, it is believed that as the number of pistons increases, so does the power! When pistons are aligned in a straight line in an engine, the engine is known as an inline engine. And most small cars come equipped with an inline 4-cylinder engine. While, in a V6 engine, the cylinders are aligned in a V-shape.  Such an engine is more powerful as compared to the traditional inline-4 engine.

Inline 4-cylinder engines occupy a long and narrow space under the hood. They are placed at right angle from the bonnet lid and need a very little space. Therefore, cars with inlne 4-cylinder engines can be manufactured with a short bonnet. Inline-4 engines are less priced as compared to V6 engines.

V6 engines comprise two mirrored three-cylinder engines. The two kinds of angles used in such engines include 60 degrees and 90 degrees. Basically, a V6 engine  consists of two pistons, one being placed on the left and the other on the right cylinder bank that is shared by a crank pin. The crank pins are instrumental in avoiding vibration between the two sets of engines. A V6 consumes more fuel as compared to an inline engine. The production cost of a V6 is much higher than the inline engine.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 11:23 am and is filed under Buying a Car. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.