I'll speak up FOR this engine as I think it's the venerable Pontiac Iron Duke - when normally maintained (and not stuck into a Fiero where it is likely to burn to a cinder), the Iron Duke will provide many years of trouble-free operation.
GM 3.1 V6 picture
- Thread starter PF52
- Start date
- Status
Well, this thread certainly has hit its flash point. . .
Last-Z: I'll be the first to stand up and agree that multiple months of sucking up unfiltered road debris would grind a Toyota engine to bits just as quickly as it will any American.
Owner negligence is a big factor, and I've often wondered if there are any provable differences between how American car owners care for their vehicles vs. how import owners do.
But so many of these things aren't due to neglect, they're inherent in the car. I had totally forgotten (probably on purpose) about a Pontiac Astre I had for a while when I was around 20 (that's Pontiac's Chevy Vega knockoff -- remember THAT masterpiece of advanced engineering?). From about six months of exposure, I can recite about a dozen horrifying malfunctions, my favorite being when the shift cable just spontaneously snapped! Now, I know I didn't do anything to make that happen.
Last-Z: I'll be the first to stand up and agree that multiple months of sucking up unfiltered road debris would grind a Toyota engine to bits just as quickly as it will any American.
Owner negligence is a big factor, and I've often wondered if there are any provable differences between how American car owners care for their vehicles vs. how import owners do.
But so many of these things aren't due to neglect, they're inherent in the car. I had totally forgotten (probably on purpose) about a Pontiac Astre I had for a while when I was around 20 (that's Pontiac's Chevy Vega knockoff -- remember THAT masterpiece of advanced engineering?). From about six months of exposure, I can recite about a dozen horrifying malfunctions, my favorite being when the shift cable just spontaneously snapped! Now, I know I didn't do anything to make that happen.
If you hadn't said it, I was going to... Is the implication that American car owners are more negligent and stupid than Japanese car owners?
I would agree that generally , imported cars from Japan and Germany are superior to their American counterparts.
Recently, JD Power rated Japanese vehicles as #1 in reliability (of course) and surprisingly, Detroit came in second followed by the Germans......so I guess American cars are catching up to the Japs.
Recently, JD Power rated Japanese vehicles as #1 in reliability (of course) and surprisingly, Detroit came in second followed by the Germans......so I guess American cars are catching up to the Japs.
I have a '90 Sunbird as a daily driver.It was my wife's car since it was almost new. It has over 140,000 trouble free miles on it. This car has not been abused, but it is far from pampered. It doesn't use a drop of oil. It's never had anything but Quaker State in it, and I even used Fram oil filters for a long time.
Sure, you're welcome to post it elsewhere if you'd like.quote:
Originally posted by Bror Jace:
Pennzoil’s sometimes maligned oil pan visual test a few years ago showed that the oil left things very clean. So, it makes sense to me that regular 3,000 mile oil and filter changes with Pennzoil conventional oil have kept things this clean.
Is the source (host) of that picture going to stay for a while? I’d like to post links to this thread on other car forums where I see the stupid myth that Pennzoil will clog up your motor with wax over time. Time to put that silly puppy to rest forever!
This whole subject came up on the Fiero forum (www.fiero.nl). There's a couple guys on there who are always saying that Pennzoil and Quaker State will sludge up an engine in a short time, more or less regardless of how its maintained. Really, they mention it in almost every thread about oil. I never believed this myth; in fact I never even heard about it until I got online and started checking out car forums. I started using Pennzoil when I was 17; after 20 years I've had no trouble with it - this was my first brand new car and I always intended to keep it as long as possible with careful maintenance. I've got the oil change logs to prove it.
Little did I know this would turn into a domestic vs. import flamefest LOL.
Here we go again!!!!!
I have owned a ton of so called Domestics and had problems that were rediculous!
91 Camaro- electrical problems, leaks, clearcoat peel.
86 Z-28- Sensor malfunctions, bad clearcoats, rusty fasteners, interior leaks. In and out of the shop more than I drove it.
92 Cavalier Z-24- Bad clearcoat, rusty fasteners, cheap seats, electrical issues.
Fiero- left my wife to be stranded in a bad section of town. Fire hazard. Electrical issues.
So called Imports:
85 Toyota 4x4- I had this since 1985 and finally retired it this past January 2003, 18 years. Sold it cheap for $2500.00. Best vehicle I ever owned! Original water pump, clutch, transmission.
88 Acura Legend- 8 years and no problems! Annoying lifter tick was all I dealt with. Very nice ride! Rock solid still when I got rid of it in 2000.
1995 4 runner- Great truck and solid all around. No issues other than replacing the valve cover gaskets.
2003 Tacoma- This vehicle is more Domestic than your so called Domestics. It is manufactured in California. The engines are built in Cali and West Virginia. The body and plastics are made in Cali.. Issues so far, water leak drivers side, I repaired it with the Toyota Tech for warranty purposes, none after that.
I am very, very picky and do not want issues with my rides. My choice and clear winner so far is Toyota or Honda based on my experiences and favorable resale.
Happy travels!
Daily Drives:
-2003 Toyota Tacoma PreRunner XtraCab, 2.7 Liter , Mobil1 Synthetic SS 5W-30.
ODO 8350 Miles.
-1995 Toyota 4-Runner 3.0 V6, Mobil1 Synthetic SS 10W-30.
ODO 84500 Miles.
http://community.webshots.com/user/amkeer
I have owned a ton of so called Domestics and had problems that were rediculous!
91 Camaro- electrical problems, leaks, clearcoat peel.
86 Z-28- Sensor malfunctions, bad clearcoats, rusty fasteners, interior leaks. In and out of the shop more than I drove it.
92 Cavalier Z-24- Bad clearcoat, rusty fasteners, cheap seats, electrical issues.
Fiero- left my wife to be stranded in a bad section of town. Fire hazard. Electrical issues.
So called Imports:
85 Toyota 4x4- I had this since 1985 and finally retired it this past January 2003, 18 years. Sold it cheap for $2500.00. Best vehicle I ever owned! Original water pump, clutch, transmission.
88 Acura Legend- 8 years and no problems! Annoying lifter tick was all I dealt with. Very nice ride! Rock solid still when I got rid of it in 2000.
1995 4 runner- Great truck and solid all around. No issues other than replacing the valve cover gaskets.
2003 Tacoma- This vehicle is more Domestic than your so called Domestics. It is manufactured in California. The engines are built in Cali and West Virginia. The body and plastics are made in Cali.. Issues so far, water leak drivers side, I repaired it with the Toyota Tech for warranty purposes, none after that.
I am very, very picky and do not want issues with my rides. My choice and clear winner so far is Toyota or Honda based on my experiences and favorable resale.
Happy travels!
Daily Drives:
-2003 Toyota Tacoma PreRunner XtraCab, 2.7 Liter , Mobil1 Synthetic SS 5W-30.
ODO 8350 Miles.
-1995 Toyota 4-Runner 3.0 V6, Mobil1 Synthetic SS 10W-30.
ODO 84500 Miles.
http://community.webshots.com/user/amkeer
This pic just IMO blows your prescious
Sorry
This engine lives in Glen Ellyn, IL and I kinda doubt it would have made it to these miles running a 15w-40 diesel oil
year round anyway .
[ April 17, 2004, 08:57 AM: Message edited by: Motorbike ]
I had an 89 Pontiac 6000 with a 2.8 and it had about 240000 miles on it. I got rid of it back in March, I had repeatedly and severly overheated the engine, ruined a headgasket, possibly cracked a head too, and it still started right up and ran, albeit roughly.quote:
Originally posted by T-Keith:
You could have just stopped there.
There are plenty of 3.1s and Grand ams out there with well over 100,000 miles to prove you wrong. Granted the 85-91 N-bodies were a little more reliable than the 92-98, they were still a decent car. Despite all the talk here about intake problems, I've never seen one with this problem, and I've seen plenty running around with high mileage and no problems.
-T
J cars never had the Duke. They had a variety of 1.8 to 2.2, and in some newer J's, a 2.3/2.4, but never was a 2.5 Duke installed in a J.
Ah yes the good old 2.5 Iron Duke or "Tech 4". Approx 98 peak hp and 125 peak ft-lbs torque but they got the job done and ran forever if properly maintained. You could beat on the engine as much as you wanted and as long as you changed the oil regularly and the coolant every couple of years they just kept going and going.
I still see a lot of Celebrities and Cutlass Cieras from about 87 to 92 still running around town.
I'm with you on this one Motorbike. The key here is the religious OCIs and apparently other maintenance combined with the old pushrod pig-iron simplicity of design that's easy on the oil.quote:
Originally posted by Motorbike:
This pic just IMO blows your prescioustheory to run a 15w-40 diesel oil in every engine under the sun in a effort to have a cleaner engine as but one of the reasons you have posted .
Sorryif the truth hurts and speaking off the truth , what reason would this member have to post a pic and lie about it ? I believe him because I have seen high mile Pennzoil and Quaker State engines that were exceptionally clean and these were not engines I simply ran across , they were owned and maintained by friends since new .
This engine lives in Glen Ellyn, IL and I kinda doubt it would have made it to these miles running a 15w-40 diesel oil
year round anyway .
Motorbike,
Being a little rough on me there, don't 'ya think?
All I'm saying is that I've never seen, with my own two eyes, an engine with this many miles (that had spent its life on conventional PCMO) be as spotless as the picture depicts unless it had been manually cleaned.
Maybe the owners I spoke to were being untruthful about their OCI's?
I do agree with you that running a 15w-40 in Glen Ellyn year-round would not be a very wise choice...
Being a little rough on me there, don't 'ya think?
All I'm saying is that I've never seen, with my own two eyes, an engine with this many miles (that had spent its life on conventional PCMO) be as spotless as the picture depicts unless it had been manually cleaned.
Maybe the owners I spoke to were being untruthful about their OCI's?
I do agree with you that running a 15w-40 in Glen Ellyn year-round would not be a very wise choice...
even though this thread is already on the way out...
I have a '95 Cutlass Ciera with a 3.1 that has over 165,000 on it, running GTX 10W-30 since I've owned it [1999]. The motor has had zero problems, save an oil pan that has always seeped a tiny bit. Engine has never used oil, and has an OCI between 2900 and 3500 miles. Do I think it's a great car? No. If properly maintained and driven normally, it sure has lasted, though.
I think the BITOG members are particlarly sensitive to anything that is wrong with their cars, and take precautions to do what is necessary to keep their cars running right, including [gasp!] preventative maintenance. We could probably keep some of the worst cars on the road longer than anyone else.
I have a '95 Cutlass Ciera with a 3.1 that has over 165,000 on it, running GTX 10W-30 since I've owned it [1999]. The motor has had zero problems, save an oil pan that has always seeped a tiny bit. Engine has never used oil, and has an OCI between 2900 and 3500 miles. Do I think it's a great car? No. If properly maintained and driven normally, it sure has lasted, though.
I think the BITOG members are particlarly sensitive to anything that is wrong with their cars, and take precautions to do what is necessary to keep their cars running right, including [gasp!] preventative maintenance. We could probably keep some of the worst cars on the road longer than anyone else.
Ah, the perennial myth of "evil" paraffins... All paraffins do not equate to "wax", "varnish" and "sludge" any more than all alcohols equate to "beverage", "loose dates", and "mellow attitude". High paraffin content in refined mineral oil is the desired goal and true Pennsylvania grade crude had among the highest naturally ocurring paraffin content available. But the lower quality Group I base stocks refined from less desirable crudes do contain considerable amounts of unsaturated aromatics and sulfur compounds which WILL degrade to oxidation products such as varnish and, eventually, sludge. The very quality that makes Group III base stocks so desirable is their exceptionally high paraffin content (with only single digit percentages of sulfur compounds and unsaturated naphthenes) achieved through catalytic isomerization. The methane (four hydrogen atoms locked to a carbon atom - it don't get no simpler!) gas-to-lube base oils generated from stranded natural gas and then isomerized to the desired chain length, and still several years off commercially, will be purest Group IIIs yet - "iso-paraffins" - no unsaturates and virtually unmeasurably low trace amounts of sulfur compounds. (The cleanliness of the refineries' plumbing and storage tanks will be the real limiting factor of the resulting base oils' purity!)
Cavalier is nearly the most unsafe car on the road. CR crash reports put the Cav in a class of it's own.
High-speed crash tests are very telling, no surprises imo. Low-speed tests are even more interesting. The test consists of a back into pole, bump the front corner and rear corner, etc. Cars like Focus and 300M had as much as $3000 damage, cars like Beetle, Golf and A6 had $0-$150 damage. TRUE. Not a typo. In slow-motion the A6 bumped right off the wall and the Mazda 626 practicly exploded. FACT. KIA Rio had $6000 damage!!!
Let's say there are a lot of good engines form varous countries that run forever. What kind of chassis do you want under you at 200k? Mercedes or a Cutlass Cierra?
BTW, VW/Audi is suffering in reliability and satisfaction due to millions of bad ($10) Bremi brand coil-packs. No replacments were available, so there were a lot of people stranded until new ones were manufactured.
High-speed crash tests are very telling, no surprises imo. Low-speed tests are even more interesting. The test consists of a back into pole, bump the front corner and rear corner, etc. Cars like Focus and 300M had as much as $3000 damage, cars like Beetle, Golf and A6 had $0-$150 damage. TRUE. Not a typo. In slow-motion the A6 bumped right off the wall and the Mazda 626 practicly exploded. FACT. KIA Rio had $6000 damage!!!
Let's say there are a lot of good engines form varous countries that run forever. What kind of chassis do you want under you at 200k? Mercedes or a Cutlass Cierra?
BTW, VW/Audi is suffering in reliability and satisfaction due to millions of bad ($10) Bremi brand coil-packs. No replacments were available, so there were a lot of people stranded until new ones were manufactured.
Two things. 1) You must maintain your vechile well! Keep up the good work! 2)You must have gotten a winner!
What usualy does these engines in assumeing that they are cared for is gasket leaks. They normaly have a head gasket leak that sludges them right up, and intake manifold leak that either sludges them up or sandblasts the bearing. The other thing is an overheat that warps the head and then sludges things up.
Prior to the current GM piston slap and oil consuption issues most of the engines would last a long while if cared for. Gasket failures have always been a huge issues on GM vechiles and Dodge vechiles. If you got one that did not blow gaskets left and right and cared for them they tended to last. They had to start designing new engines to meet "CAFE" in the future. The good news is that Dodges two new V8's and their new V6 have solved all of the gasket problems associated with the old LA seires engines. GM still has gasket problems and has developed some new one as well. I will say that they have improved them alot. The ecotec seems to be problem free now that they solved the liner cracking issue. The 4.2 I6 seems to be relative problem free other then assembly problems at the plant. GM's V8's still suffer from gasket problems.
[ November 15, 2004, 11:39 PM: Message edited by: JohnBrowning ]
What usualy does these engines in assumeing that they are cared for is gasket leaks. They normaly have a head gasket leak that sludges them right up, and intake manifold leak that either sludges them up or sandblasts the bearing. The other thing is an overheat that warps the head and then sludges things up.
Prior to the current GM piston slap and oil consuption issues most of the engines would last a long while if cared for. Gasket failures have always been a huge issues on GM vechiles and Dodge vechiles. If you got one that did not blow gaskets left and right and cared for them they tended to last. They had to start designing new engines to meet "CAFE" in the future. The good news is that Dodges two new V8's and their new V6 have solved all of the gasket problems associated with the old LA seires engines. GM still has gasket problems and has developed some new one as well. I will say that they have improved them alot. The ecotec seems to be problem free now that they solved the liner cracking issue. The 4.2 I6 seems to be relative problem free other then assembly problems at the plant. GM's V8's still suffer from gasket problems.
[ November 15, 2004, 11:39 PM: Message edited by: JohnBrowning ]
- Status
