What's the difference between a turbocharger and a supercharger? Isn't it something like that the supercharger boosts power at lower revs, while a Turbo requires higher revs?

In Australia we have the Euro spec VW's, and my Golf had a 4 cylinder 1.4 litre engine with a turbocharger and a supercharger putting out 118 kilowatts (around 160 hp). Here in North America they have that 5 cylinder, 2.5 litre engine that produces 170 hp. Only 10 hp difference between a 1.4 and 2.5 litres!

Not quite right. In normal operation a turbo charger saves fuel, but under wide open throttle and general fast driving conditions, it uses much more fuel than NA engines with similar power.

Also a supercharger works similar, but its not propelled by exhaust gases, but directly by the engines crank shaft (over a belt).

Consumer reports are just trolling for more "viewers"
Under vacuum (cruising low loads) a 2 liter turbo with a possible peak HP of say 220 in factory tune will get significantly better gas mileage than a 3 liter 220hp normally aspirated engine under the same load.
Consumer reports doesn't seem to understand basic science. If the engine moves an extra 50% more air (2 vs 3 liter) and it must maintain the correct fuel ratio then the larger engine HAS to use more fuel. You can't lean out under cruising either or the exhaust temperatures go up too high and it will melt the heads/valves.

Don't believe these goofballs. I speak from significant experience.

You can afford...being the prime question here.
Most cars these days (read: not performance cars) are made on the cheap.
Forged connecting rods, and billet valves / cam shafts / high tensile head bolts are not cheap, therfore they dont go into the vast majority of modern engines.

Putting a turbo on your engine alone would vastly increase compression ratios, stressing just about every internal part in the car. The poverty pack econo-cars can not handle any more than about 4-6lb's of boost before things start heating up, warping, and shaking themselves apart violently.

Cost to get things up to spec?

erm....well a good set of H beam forged con-rods can cost you anywhere from 600 upwards (generally upwards...a lot upwards), and thats just the part, not including installation. Getting the valves reworked, vavle springs, cam shaft....thats ~2k+ if youre doing it on the cheap.

Then you need an intercooler to take the heat out of the intake air (as the turbo compresses intake air, and therfore heats it up) so as to keep the economy levels up....and piping to go with it, your looking at another 1k at least.

Then you need an ECU mod, piggy back if you can get away with it, around the 1k figure, otherwise a full standalone can cost upwards of 1.5k.

Then you need to program and tune, upwards again of 1.5k.

To turbo a non-turbo economy engine povery-pack car, you are looking at LEAST 5k+, and thats doing it on mega budget, you wont get any reliability or safety out of it.

Before you even get to put the turbo on, which itself is about 300-1.5k depending on what turbine you purchase, you also need a turbo manifold to redirect all of the exhaust gas into a turbo, and have an outlet pipe that allows waste-gate dumps into your exhaust. So you also need to get your cat-back system redone too, which is about 700-1500 to get it done right.

Doing it right? Start counting from 10k....and keep going.

Doing it right would be to upgrade the breaks (bigger discs, bigger calipers, bigger master cylinder), the suspension (coilovers), and doing some serious chassis strengthening to take the increased loads (front/rear sway bar upgrades, front/rear strut tower bars etc..)

Its not cheap unfortunately

I'm not sure of the details, but Consumer Reports seems to disagree: http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2013/02/consumer-reports-finds-small-turbo-engines-dont-deliver-on-fuel-economy-claims.html

http://videosift.com/video/The-Turbo-Encabulator
I'm really tempted to tag this as related.

EVERY CAR SHOULD HAVE A TURBO!!!!!
SUUTUUTOOTOOTOO

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What are you talking about, both the penis' behind the wheels of these vehicles are probably American. Someone just fucking hates America(n).
Outmatched vehicles:
553 ft.-lbs. of torque at 2000 rpm and 310 HP (18:1 comp ratio w/dual-turbo chargers) with the Toureg

520 lb-ft @ 1,800 RPM- 6.6 liter w/300 hp @ 3100 rpm with bouncy there-

While both seem matched, the VW's the real piece of work.
Engineering be damned, the Germans pretty much extended their penises farther than any country with their fucking master -race shit.
Got to hand it to the insect-like attention to details, though....after WW2, a shitload of their engineers came to the U.S.

So, buy a Mercedes Benz and enjoy it....great car, until you need repairs...Ka-Chiniig!!

You might find the following also interesting:

As many now, "Quattro" started as a specific Audi Model, introduced 1980. The huge success and fame of this model led to the "Quattro" suffix of all the following AWD Audis. But funny enough the original Audi Quattro (or "Ur-Quattro" in German) was planned to be named Audi Carat, an acronym for "Coupe All-Rad-Antrieb Turbo" which translates to "all wheel drive turbo coupe". But Audi tossed that because of a perfume of that time with a rather questionable target group's image...

If the liberal dream of seizing all the wealth of the rich came true (minus, I'm sure, Hollywood weirdos) they'd loot about 250 billion, enough to fund our entire precious thugverment for 10-12 days.

The Right needs to step aside like an aikido sensei and just let the taxocrats raise taxes as high as they want, that way the left can OWN the turbo-boost they give to the Depression they're already creating,