Maximum Automotive Engine Life

[Ugly3]

I recently read a post describing an engine in a carpet cleaning truck (in line 6 I think) that was run for 400,000 travel miles plus it was run 8 hours a day 6 days a week running the various pumps for the carpet cleaning service. This has to be the equivelent of milti-million miles of "use" on the engine. The owner did oil changes every week or 2 and used "cheap" conventional oil.

This got me to thinking about how long the typical auto engine (maybe a 3x00 V6) could run under ideal conditions.

Maybe a stationary mount, 2000 rpm, running synthetic oil, changed regularly, etc., etc. (whatever you think ideal is).

How many miles (equivelent hours) do you think the typical engine could run?

 

[SteveD2]

A very, very, very long time.

 

[cryptokid]

lets say under ideal situations, a 400,000 mile truck averaving 50mph speed to account for city and highway. thats 8000 hours of engine running time.
theres somthing like a little over 8000 hours in a year, then you take into account
the 8 hour work day, figure 5 of those 8 are actually when the vacuum is on. the rest could be driving or talking with customers, giving estimtes etc.

assuming a 300 day work year, thats 1500 hours per year.

so, how many years has this truck been in operation? the engine hours could really, really add up over time.

lets assume its been used for 5 years. thats 7500 hours of engine use not counted on the odometer, or almost another 400,000 miles!

so in reality, this truck could have the equivalent of amlost 800,000 miles on the engine, depending of course on my math first of all, and assuming my assumptions are correct. thats a **** of alot of miles for ANY oil, much less "checp " conventional oil, by anyones standards!

 

[Ugly3]

cryptokid -

I took a slightly different approach to "guesstamating" the use of the truck.

I figured 90% of the 400,000 miles were put on going to a new job site. That is 360,000 job related miles.

I figured the average job was 25 miles from the last job. That means the truck was at 14,400 job sites.

It takes maybe 3 hours to do the wash, rinse, and dry cycles for the typical carpet cleaning job. That means that the "ran" a total of 43,200 hours during the carpet cleaning phase of it's use.

My guess is that the truch was run at 1,500 RPM during the cleaning phase of it's use. 1,500 RPM is roughly the equivelent of maybe 45 MPH. Running 43,200 hours @ 45 MPH would equate to 1,944,000 miles of travel.

Add this the the 400,000 of real travel miles and the truck is at about 2,500,000 of equivelent miles.

Assuming your 45 MPH is a good estimate of the travel speed, the 400,000 travel miles required 8,900 hours. Adding the 43,200 carpet cleaning run hours we get a total of 52,100 total hours.

Given that there are 2,500 hours required for a 6 day 8 hour operation it would have taken almost 21 years to accumulate this number of hours. While 21 years of service is possible, I can not imagine a "work truck" doing more than 15 years of service.

So using 15 years as a base I come up with about 1,800,000 equivelent miles (2,500,000*15/21).

And the truck was still running!

 

[sbc350gearhead]

The company that I work for......retired a bucket truck from service last year. It was a 58 model.

 

[Ugly3]

sbc350gearhead - The company that I work for......retired a bucket truck from service last year. It was a 58 model.

This should be entered in the "work truck" hall of fame!

 

[Cutehumor]

quote:

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Originally posted by sbc350gearhead:
The company that I work for......retired a bucket truck from service last year. It was a 58 model.

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how many times was the engine rebuilt?

 

[Robbie Alexander]

Hummm. Good question. Longer than most people think. Millions and millions if properly cared for and less and less of that if a lot of cold starts or dirty (acidic) oil.

I know (for gasoline)unless there is a flaw in the design... Probably a lot more than most people would ever desire to keep that automobile.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ugly3:
How many miles (equivelent hours) do you think the typical engine could run?

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[sbc350gearhead]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cutehumor:

quote:

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Originally posted by sbc350gearhead:
The company that I work for......retired a bucket truck from service last year. It was a 58 model.

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how many times was the engine rebuilt?

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More than once. IIRC it was an old GM 250 straight six.

 

[cryptokid]

ugly3, can you call that guy and ask him some details on the truck? ask how many hours a day on average does the vacuum get used, how many days a week does he work, how long has the truck been used.

it would be interesting to see real numbers instead of you and me guessing at them.

thanks.

 

[Ugly3]

He indicated the truck was used 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. Did not know the age of the truck. Sorry.

Keep in mind that the question is how long would an engine run under ideal conditions. Guessing about the cleaning service truck is just a starting point.

 

[crashz]

Well, for the amount of miles, it probably had fewer cold starts than a commuter vehicle. And changing the oil every week eliminates any particulates caught in the oil, so there is always super clean oil in the engine. If it was a Ford with the old 300 six, 300K is not unheard of even on abused engines.

If the transmission lasted that long I'd really be amazed!