BYD472QA / 472ZQA

BYD's 1.5 four — BYD472QA naturally aspirated, BYD472ZQA turbocharged — in the Qin, the Song and the DM-i cars built on them.

⚑ In a DM-i car this engine rarely drives the wheels. BYD's plug-in system runs the engine as a generator across most of its operating range, so it spends its life at a narrow band of load and speed — which changes what wears and makes mileage a poor guide to its condition.

The naturally aspirated 472QA runs the Atkinson cycle for efficiency, which gives it modest output and unusual low-speed behaviour if it is ever asked to drive directly.

The Z is the turbocharger, and the turbocharged version is the one used where the engine does drive the wheels.

It is not the BYD476ZQA, which is also a 1.5 turbo, also petrol and has its own page here. Two BYD 1.5 turbos with adjacent numbers is exactly the shape that sends a parts order to the wrong engine — the 472 is the DM-i generation, the 476 the one before it.

English-language service material barely exists. BYD's own documentation is the practical source, and the engine is young enough that no independent failure pattern has established itself.