Puissance de moteur

[Deauville]

I hope Sunday Driver picks this up as I've mislaid his contact details.

I have at long last embarked on the re-registration process for two vehicles that I have brought from UK (both off-road at present before anyone jumps on me!) and I have a couple of queeries. Firstly I need to visit the Centre des Impots for my Quittus Fiscal but I have read that I may need to provide the puissance in respect of each engine - is this correct and if so how do I find it? Also S.D. stated in one of his responses that the gas installation on my aged camper would have to be checked by a Bureau Veritas but all I can find in Pages Jaune is reference to what appears to be buildings inspection - would they be the same body responsible for both vehicle and buildings? When I visited the DRIRE last year the very helpful lady there gave me a check-list of the required documentation for the re-reg process but there was no mention of a gas certificate - any comments (the van is a pukka Hymer originally registered in Germany) Thanks

[Jc]

The "PUISSANCE" of a vehicle originally sold in France may not be the same as that of what appears to be an equivalent vehicle sold in other UK countries.To get a particularly good "CV" rate for taxation purposes(original tax not road tax) there were many changes made to the spec. of vehicles sold in France,such as different g/boxes,final drives because of the method of calculation.

[Jc]

For "UK" read "EU".Thanks.

[Cassis]

Should you ever need to calculate the Puissance Fiscale yourself, there is a formula:

La

Puissance Administrative

Depuis

le 1er janvier 1978, le calcul de la puissance administratrive/fiscale

des véhicules vendus en France, prend en compte les démultiplications

de transmission. C'est dans le but de favoriser des véhicules à

adaptation moteur-transmission de type économique (rapports longs)

et donc, d'en défavoriser d'autres.

 

•  Pour
  les véhicules particuliers de moins de 9 places à
  moteur thermique quatre temps

La puissance administrative Pa est donnée par la formule suivante :  avec m égal à 1 pour les moteurs à essence ou à 0,7 pour les moteurs Diesel,  C étant la cylindrée du moteur en cm3  et K la moyenne des vitesses exprimées en km/h pour 1 000 tr/mn au moteur.

Good luck with that one! [:)]

[powerdesal]

deleted, brain not in gear.

[AnOther]

Or, for the slightly less masochistic...............[blink]

One measure to be aware of is the "continental horsepower" or PS. This stands for "PferdeStarke" - the German translation of "horse power". In France you sometimes see the same measure being called a "CV" for Cheval Vapeur. This measure was chosen in Europe as being the closest thing to a horsepower that could be expressed in nice round metric units - 75 kilogramme metres per second to be exact. It is commonly used by car manufacturers nowadays and tends to get used synonymously with bhp although it is actually a slightly smaller unit of power. One PS is about 98.6% of one bhp. The conversion table below covers the units most commonly used to express power and torque. Copyright David Baker and Puma Race Engines

To convert from:	To:	Multiply by:
BHP	PS	1.01387
BHP	Ft Lbs/second	550
BHP	Watts	745.7
PS	Kg M/second	75
PS	Ft Lbs/second	542.476
PS	Watts	735.5
Kilowatts	BHP	1.341
Kilowatts	PS	1.360
Lb Ft	Nm	1.356

[powerdesal]

Does that mean that K is averaged across the kph / 1000 rpm in each gear, in which case an overdrive top gear would be a very good idea, or a 6 speed box, or does it just refer to top gear?

[Cassis]

Lost me there, Steve. [:D]

I think our old Pug 306 1.4 was classed 6 CV for fiscality purposes.  I don't think there is a simple way to calculate it other than the bizarre formula I found on the Internet, though there may be a "rule of thumb" approximation which is simpler.

[Jc]

It is a "bizarre" formula but I do not know if it is the one you found;the UK used to have the "RAC" horse power rating which only took into account the bore of the engine and not the stroke.

[Bob T]

I think that the CV fiscal is nothing to do with CV as in bhp. In the UK hp used to be calculated in a different way before bhp came along. In France one CV used to be the same as one cylinder, hence the 2CV made by Citroen having 2 cylinders but 32 bhp. 4CV used to mean 4 cylinders and had noting to do with engine power output.

[Jc]

French "CV" for tax purposes bear no relation to the output of the engine;as you say a car rated at 6CV for fiscal purposes may well be producing 50-60 BHP just as in the UK,the RAC rating was used at one time for road tax purposes(a long time ago) and being based only on the bore of the engine and not the stroke also had nothing to do with power output.It also produced some peculiar engines with tiny bores and very long strokes.The French calculation takes into account the gear ratios and final drive ratio.Modern EU power figures are now officially quoted in Kw.;someone quoted conversions above to change these into BHP and Cv(actual) which are not used for car taxation in Farnce.

[Sunday Driver]

Deauville

The CV rating of the vehicles is not required for the quittus fiscale.  However, if you want to know it for the Hymer, it's actually on the back page of the notice descriptive (the document with the diagonal stripe) that you received with your Mercedes Benz attestation - it's 10CV. 

The gas certificate you need for the DRIRE is an attestation de conformite a la norme europeenne NFEN 1646-1 (previously NF S 56-200). You can arrange the inspection through your nearest certification office which, if you are based in West Dordogne, will be:

Bureau Veritas, Parc d'activites Actipolis, Avenue Ferdinand de Lesseps, 33610 CANEJAN  Tel: 05.57.96.24.00

It's situated about 5 kms south west of  Bordeaux - from the peripherique, take the A63 southbound (toll free section) then take the first exit (junction 26).

You'll have no problems getting your Hymer certified, but beware - they'll fail it if it's still got the old German 50Mbar regulators, so change them for new 37Mbar ones before the inspection. 

 

[powerdesal]

Cass, do promise to try and keep up! [:)]

As K is the average in km/hr at 1000 rpm of the motor (according to my very poor French language ability), if you have an overdrive or effectively an overdrive top (6th gear) then the speed in that gear per 1000 rpm will be higher which will increase the value of the average K (if its taken in each gear) hence application to the formula will reduce the answer which is the fiscal CV - I think  [8-)]

[Will]

Cassis, the formula you gave has been superseded (though it still applies to vehicles built during the period while it was current). It changed again in 1998 to take into account a vehicle's CO2 emissions.

Depuis juillet 1998, la puissance fiscale dépend de la valeur normalisée d'émission de dioxyde de carbone (CO2) en grammes/km et de la puissance maximale du moteur en Kw.
Pa = (CO2/45) + (P/40) 1.6

So although engine power has a slight innfluence, it doesn't really affect things that much. For instance, I have a car made in 2001, the engine output is about 90bhp but its fical rating is only 5CV.

[Cassis]

Thank heavens.  That's all much clearer.