Mahindra NEF (2.6 and 2.49)

Mahindra's New Engine Family, developed with AVL of Austria to replace the ageing indirect-injection engines, and the diesel in the first-generation Scorpio, the Xylo and the Thar CRDe.

It is one family at two displacements and the smaller one is the larger one with a shorter stroke — 2,609 cc, then 2,498 cc for export markets that tax above 2.5 litres. So a 2.5 and a 2.6 NEF share a block, a head and a fault population, and the capacity on the badge is a tax decision rather than an engineering one.

⚑ CRDe is Mahindra's word for common rail, not the name of this engine. Mahindra coined it because CRDi was already registered by another maker, and it then went on the m2DiCR cars as well — so a badge reading CRDe says the injection is common rail and nothing at all about which family is underneath. The displacement does say: 2,498 or 2,609 here, 2,522 on the m2DiCR.

Three injection systems ran in this one family and they diagnose nothing alike. The base engine is naturally aspirated with a mechanical Lucas rotary pump; the TCI adds a turbocharger and an intercooler on a Bosch mechanical pump; the CRDe is electronic common rail. Mahindra went from mechanical injection straight to common rail with no electronic-governor step in between, which is why there is no VP44-era material for it and why the jump in what a workshop needs is so abrupt.