Why don’t the manufacturers tune their engines for best performance at the start?
This is a fair question and one which cannot be answered simply. The manufacturers have very stringent regulations to meet before they can release a model. Manufacturers have to ensure minimum emissions maximum reliability whilst using the worst fuel quality available. They are forced to reduce some exhaust gases whilst increasing other equally harmful gasses due to crazy legislation. This leads to highly compromised engine mapping. Ironically most engines are not tuned to produce best fuel economy as a result of the above and it is absurd that in order to achieve a particular exhaust emission cocktail we are using more fossil fuel to achieve it. Petrol engines for example may be set up with excessively retarded ignition timing in order to increase exhaust temperature and so catalytic converter efficiency but all at the expense of performance and fuel economy. To conclude the car makers know how to tune their engines but they are forced into compromises that only the end user can recti
