Ever had a engine or Transmission failure?

I forgot about this. When I was down on my luck, I had a 1990 Camry wagon that I picked up for cheap with a salvage title. The receipts to repair it were in the car and far exceeded the price that I paid for it. It also had two receipts for lifetime mufflers. (?) One from Midas and one from Monro. It drove great for about a year and then one day on my way to work the transmission slipped out of drive and wouldn't go back in. Had to drive it in reverse back home. LOL. Good thing I didn't get far from home. The ATF was like new so it wasn't the fluid. By then I had saved up enough money to buy a Jeep.
 
John105 said:
In the olden days. I answered an ad and bought a Volvo 264. This old guy (probably late 30's) completely ripped me off. Car had head gasket issues, front struts were collapsed, and transmission failed. The radiator was full of Bar's stop leak.

I took him to small claims court, and LOST. He was a smart old fella, he had written, "as is" on the bill of sale. For me, it was good imho to learn so many lessons at an early age (19-22). At any rate, a salvage yard put in a B27F with trans and I drove the car from 1990-1998, which isn't bad really for a 11 y.o. car that became 19 under my ownership. Gave it to my bro and he destroyed it.

Back then, I seemed to like small claims court. I took a landlord there and won. I remember interjecting drama like I was in a movie and I rather enjoyed it. Slumlord knew the system and didn't pay. Funny thing, is I knew he worked at a shoe repair shop, and filed an income execution. He decided to pay when Five O showed up to serve it.
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A friend of mine is a licensed mechanic and he would never sell a vehicle safetied only because of this. Even if he knew it should pass a safety the buyer would have to get it safetied themselves because he didn't want a fight with someone who thought safetied meant an implied warranty of some kind.
 
I've never had an engine failure on any vehicle I've ever owned, not during my ownership anyway, in over 40 years of driving. I did have a transmission fail on our 2004 Honda Odyssey at about 159K miles. I took it to a transmission shop and had it rebuilt, and we kept that van for another 2 or 3 years before passing it on and getting the Sienna we're driving now.
 
Never in my 25 yrs in driving different types of autos - most auto makers make good engines and transmissions.
Obviously high torque monsters like trucks fail because of poor engineering or simply neglect results in failed outcomes
 
Transmission failed in my 1983 Monte Carlo in 1992 at >100k miles. Unknown service history and not maintained well by teenage me. Had a reman trans put in, and it worked fine until I got rid of the car a year later.
 
Yep. 2004 Grand Cherokee decided that the rods should be outside the block rather than inside. Something something 4.0L legendary durability...eh. Not so much.
 
My 1990 GMC Suburban transmission died 2 weeks after I bought it (new) covered under warranty. My first 1970 GS Stage 1 blew up, balloonned the torque converter. My 72 GS Stage 1 which I sold 2 yrs ago went through 2 ballooned torque converters and one tranny but that was at the drag strips. Both were th400's. But then again I used to explode the u joints with that car too. Torque monster!! Never blew any engines,but floated the valves a few times.
 
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ZZman said:
We often talk about the importance of quality fluids for our vehicles. However we often hear little to nothing about failures that may have occurred due to the fluids.

My question is basically have you ever had an engine or transmission fail and what caused it.

In over 4 decades of driving and dozens of newer and used vehicles I have never had a transmission fail. I did however have an engine failure on an old Ford Festiva. Something in the valvetrain broke and made horrendous noise. Not sure of the cause because I junked it with about 150,000 miles. I also had an Olds Delta 88 with the 3800 motor hydrolock a cylinder due to intake gasket failure and threw a rod thru the block. I guess that isn't too bad of a record.

How about you?
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1991 Chevrolet 1500, 350 , Auto, Transmission gave out at about 86K, Something got stuck in the cooler. Found while doing the rebuild. Replaced the cooler and all the lines. Ran great after that till it was totaled.
 
Plenty. Had a mitshubishi that broke a crank. 350 chevy that spun a rod bearing 350 chevy,302ford and a 318 dodge all lost a cam. As well as too many dirtbikes and off road vehicles to count.

Put 5 transmissions in the mitsubishi,3 in the elcamino and 2 in the duster that i remember
 
Two TH-200's in two different '78 Chevy Malibus'
One may have been me being a dumb teenager doing burnouts...The other, just failed outright, in an otherwise well maintained car.
HG in an '88 Dodge Caravan with the 2.5L.
I suspect the first replacement wasn't done correctly. By the time it happened in 2004, it wasn't economically viable to repair it.
All in all, been pretty fortunate with my vehicles with their advanced ages and stupidity as a teenager.
 
'74 318 Plymouth Valiant lost the trans because I let it get low and didn't check it even though it gave me plenty of waring. Also wore the engine out, because I was young and beat the snot out of it.
'85 Shelby Charger broke a pinion in the transaxle and spit it out the bottom of the case. Warranty
2003 Lincoln LS 5A had the trans rebuilt and the PCM turned out to be the issue
2004 F150 3V engine locked up. Typical 3V phaser related issue.
'12 6M Cruze Eco. Fine up shifting, grind down shifting Warranty trans replacement.
 
Never lost an engine. But lost some Honda transmission cause I was pushing them to the limits on power. Man it was fun though.

Lost one GM transmission under warranty and had it replaced without issue. That one was way less fun.
 
Not so much my vehicles but, remember major over heating in one of my dads cars, while far from home on a trip, thermostat broke and blocked flow, cracked head, long tow truck ride.
Rod bearing while riding in a friends, mom's old buick, scared her.
The same friend running his car out of oil it leaked a bunch, seized a bit, starter wouldn't move it, dumped in more oil and push started it, happened more than once, that was part of the fun for me anyway. Don't remember what he did with it and if it ever finally bit the dust.
Had friends with major transmission slipping problems in the day.
 
In the late 80's early 90's I owned a 4x4 wrecking yard. Standard procedure was to try to get anything running and/or driving so you could kinda get an idea of what was good on it or not. Saw my share of motors and drivetrain parts go boom after being awakened from a long sleep.
 
Don’t know if I consider this an actual failure so to speak or just a manufacturing defect but our 2001 Jeep Cherokee has a bad engine and overheats and shoots all the coolant out the reservoir when you turn it off. Multiple mechanics including myself replaced the head gasket multiple times, replaced the head still does it. Guy who specializes in them believes the block was flawed from the factory. He said he believes it was flawed because in 2001 the workers found out they were all losing their jobs so they used whatever subpar parts they had laying around and he believes we got one of the bad blocks. The Jeep has sat for 10 years now and no one has had success so we have to replace the engine if my dad ever gets the money for it.
 
Yep... one of each... on 2 different 90's vehicles.. in a row!

Ford Taurus 3.8L Under 100K miles.. head gaskets were absolutely blown.. Ran that 3.8L until the pistons actually broke through the side of the block... - it did not take long haha.

Saturn SL2 (DOHC Automatic) About 115K miles... Drove through a puddle at highway speeds, and no exaggeration the differential pin blew through the transmission case as did the multiple qts of mobile one full synthetic transmission fluid.....


I believe everyone should own a "bad" vehicle or two... So then we can appreciate the good ones lol...
 
Wife’s 2005 Subaru Legacy GT (turbo) wagon went in for oil change at 160k and check engine and turned out to be burned valve.

Required engine removal , valve job and then another $1000 in misc work (all maintenance(plugs/timing belt/belts/pulleys / wear parts accesible including piston rings/headgasket, cleanup clutch flywheel/replace throw out bearing) . Total $3200 with Indy who took a month.

We drove after from 160k - 240k only changing oil , air filter and repairing leaky turbo oil lines. Notable turbo lasted till we sold , wife did not like smoking from dripping oil on engine.
 
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