Interesting Auto News Article on Widespread Engine Failures

[BMWTurboDzl]

Ditto for rebuilding after a major calamity such as a tornado, hurricane, or California–type fire. That's not "good for the economy" either.

Some people years back were saying that we need to learn to subtract from GDP, citing this and other things like spending on health problems such as cancer caused by manmade pollution and chemicals in the environment. The medical profession might do well from treating the latter, but no one else does; for everyone else it's actually a cost. GDP looks at spending and not the costs that go with certain types of spending, meaning after something really bad happens to someone or his/her property.

We've had a lot of recent discussion about various engines and transmissions that are prone to catastrophic failures even with careful maintenance and driving. There's no excuse for such poor designs, unless the manufacturer believes people will just buy a replacement vehicle from it, but I for one would not buy again from that automaker after I had such an experience.

Well people kept buying vehicles which were worse. The MSRP for my Jeep Limited Wagoneer in 1989 was $23k or $60k in 2025 dollars. The electric switches in the doors shorted at around 30k miles because some wiring went near the primary cat.and melted, the rear differential failed at 45k miles and clear coat followed at 55k miles.

 

[Exhaustgases]

There is no one specific thing causing the mentioned problems, it is a basket full of items. Automobile/ truck building in this age is a monkey see monkey do endeavor between all the different manufactures and engineering departments. They also seem to like to use the latest wives tails in the engineering departments now as well.

 

[The_Jeff]

Speaking of windows I heard they are adding lamination inbetween the glass layers on front side windows making it hard to get people out in a wreck. You have to wonder about the people making decisions today.

This is so the driver's and passenger side airbags have something substantial to brace against when they pop. My Toyota manual notes that glass like this has an M-shaped top-- two little pips with a valley. It also notes that rescue hammers won't work-- if you want out, go through a rear window or the hatchback. Sure enough, I checked mine-- they're right.

I'll also thank previous posters for correcting and clarifying clearances vs tolerances.

 

[oil pan 4]

Direct injection (fuel delusion), 20wt oils and very optimistic OCIs.