How many cylinders?

[Pyraxis]

So my mother just sold me her old car, a 2001 Chevrolet Prizm. She and my father claim the engine has only 3 cylinders, so it shouldn't be driven faster than 65mph. Now WolFish is telling me that is wrong, that they were only built with 4-cylinder engines.

I know very little about cars. Can someone tell me what might be going on here?

[Semicolon]

Wikipedia says that it has four cylinders. Perhaps your parents think that one is broken? Link Is it the original engine? Three-cylinder engines aren't popular nowadays.

[Pyraxis]

I asked if one was broken and they said no, it was unusual but it was built that way. Everything I'm finding on google says the engine is an I4, which I guess means 4 cylinders?

[Semicolon]

I asked if one was broken and they said no, it was unusual but it was built that way. Everything I'm finding on google says the engine is an I4, which I guess means 4 cylinders?

It means an inline engine with four cylinders.

Why not open the hood and count?

[Pyraxis]

I will, tomorrow morning. See if I can figure out which bits are the cylinders.

[DirtDawg]

You have a four cylinder engine.

I am not sure where the three cylinder thing came from, but there were some old Suburus that truly had very small three cylinder engines. They were tiny, more like motorcycles with four wheels and a canopy than actual cars.


Chrysler, Pontiac, Mazda and Ford (maybe others) have all experimented with small engines that "turn off" half the cylinders while cruising at low power, but a nice overdrive transmission was determined to be the best way to shut the engine down some, by simply reducing RPMs,  in order to save fuel during times of low power needs.

[Jack]

Someone might have told them that and the just believed it. First car, for a couple of years had the wrong size plugs, oil filter and so on, because someone, can't recall who now, told me it had a certain size engine, when it was really another, and was buying the wrong parts based on that misinformation.

[Icequeen]

Toyota  I4 (inline 4 cylinder).

Ex had one of these for awhile (99 I think), same engine, he beat it to hell and back, sold it to his brother who did the same, it looked like roadkill when they got done with it and it was resold again, it still ran great.

[bodie]

Dihatsu Charade has 3 cylinder,  so they are about but your car should have 4.

Are you known for high speed car chases PY?  maybe your folks are telling you those specs so you will not drive too quickly?
 


Also I noticed when searching for parts online if I typed my registration number it would then list all the specifications.

[Parts]

One of my brothers had a little Toyota pick up with a I4 it got up over 200,000 miles of hard driving before the transmission went

[Icequeen]

One of my brothers had a little Toyota pick up with a I4 it got up over 200,000 miles of hard driving before the transmission went

Yep, you should get that easy Pyraxis. The 2001 Chevy Prizm and the Toyota Corolla are basically the same car mechanically...just packaged differently.

[Queen Victoria]

When the Honda's first came out in America in the late 1960's or very early 1970's I wanted one.  But Dad wouldn't buy me one because they only had 2 cylinders and I "would have to add oil to the gas."  That never made sense to me, but Dad did love Studebakers, which is what I was given as transport.

And no, the thought of getting a job terrified me and any jobs I did get in college never lasted past the trial employment period.  So, the Studebaker it was.

[Pyraxis]

Are you known for high speed car chases PY?  maybe your folks are telling you those specs so you will not drive too quickly?
 

Not really.  But my parents have been known to be those people driving too far under the speed limit and irritating everybody around them.

When I looked at the engine there seemed to be four big tubes coming out.

So it's four cylinders. I was driving all day today, it seems to be a good car. 

[bodie]

So, don't tell them that you have found the other one and it runs really well at 80mph 

[El]

I used to have a car I said had 3.5 cylinders but that was because one only worked half the time.