Worn out an Engine? What miles? What failed?

[zfasts03]

Just curious. I'll start out with the only car engine I ever wore out.

It was a 1980 Chrysler 318 V8, in a Chrysler Lebaron 2 door. It was my first car. I started driving it when I was 16 years old with with ~44,000 miles on it (1988). So I do not know the prior maintenance, but assumed it was good, because the rest of the car was good.

I was into cars and did all the repairs, learned a lot and became an auto technician.

Oil changes between 2500-4000 miles.
Over the years I used:
-Quaker State Deluxe 10w-40
-Valvoline All Climate 10w-40
-Castrol Syntec 5w-50 (synthetic) which cause front main seal leakage, then replaced seal
-Castrol GTX 10w-40
-Couple times used Valvoline 10w30 turbo formula.

NEW VALVE SEALS AT ~100,000, due to blue smoke on startup.

Well lets say, being young (age 16-29) I ran the heck out of it. Much of the time the RPM's were in the upper end with me getting the most out of the engine.

Well 1st signs of mechanical engine problems was at 90,000 miles when I replaced the lifters due to a ticking. I noticed that some of the lobes of the cam were worn severely, but the car still ran good and putting a cam in it was too much of a job for me at the time and I figured I would only have the car a little longer. Well a little longer turned out to be another 70,000 miles and many years. When the valve covers and intake were off for the work the engine looked fairly clean, medium varnish, no sludge, but some hard junk in the valley under the intake.

When I finally put the car to rest, by driving it to the local junk yard getting no money for it back in Nov. 2001. Here were the problems.

For the last 10,000 miles or so the engine would barely idle, due to 50 psi compression in one of the cylinders and 100 psi in another. You could hear the bad cam with the puffing of the exhaust. I am sure by then the cam was totally wiped out. Engine burned no oil at 161,000 miles.

So there is 1 engine I wore out. I didn't rebuild the engine because the rest of the car was also pretty much shot also.

So 22 years old and 161,000 miles the 318 V8 engine was no longer serviceable. By the way, at the end fuel mileage around town was only 8-10 mpg.

Curious as to who else actually has worn out an engine.

 

[Donald]

I was lucky and my engine failed at 96K in my Jeep (piston skirts) so I expect the reman engine to last the life of the frame & body.

I am really hoping the Marshall Engines used a different improved piston that what Chrysler used, since its a know problem.

Boat engines typically suck in water through a failed riser or exhaust manifold.

 

[NHGUY]

The engine could be rebuilt,its rare an engine is considered a throw away without piston/cylinder wall/broken rod damage.Oils back in the day were terrible.Sludge was more a problem than now,and you know how bad that is today.The 318 of the 1980s was not good on mileage at all.Low hp,highly geared rear ends,no overdrives....a bad situation.And they dropped 440s,400s,and 360s because they got bad mileage......I would say a moderately tuned 360 would have been better.

 

[Donald]

Originally Posted By: zfasts03
Just curious. I'll start out with the only car engine I ever wore out.

It was a 1980 Chrysler 318 V8, in a Chrysler Lebaron 2 door. It was my first car. I started driving it when I was 16 years old with with ~44,000 miles on it (1988). So I do not know the prior maintenance, but assumed it was good, because the rest of the car was good.

I was into cars and did all the repairs, learned a lot and became an auto technician.

Oil changes between 2500-4000 miles.
Over the years I used:
-Quaker State Deluxe 10w-40
-Valvoline All Climate 10w-40
-Castrol Syntec 5w-50 (synthetic) which cause front main seal leakage, then replaced seal
-Castrol GTX 10w-40
-Couple times used Valvoline 10w30 turbo formula.

NEW VALVE SEALS AT ~100,000, due to blue smoke on startup.

Well lets say, being young (age 16-29) I ran the heck out of it. Much of the time the RPM's were in the upper end with me getting the most out of the engine.

Well 1st signs of mechanical engine problems was at 90,000 miles when I replaced the lifters due to a ticking. I noticed that some of the lobes of the cam were worn severely, but the car still ran good and putting a cam in it was too much of a job for me at the time and I figured I would only have the car a little longer. Well a little longer turned out to be another 70,000 miles and many years. When the valve covers and intake were off for the work the engine looked fairly clean, medium varnish, no sludge, but some hard junk in the valley under the intake.

When I finally put the car to rest, by driving it to the local junk yard getting no money for it back in Nov. 2001. Here were the problems.

For the last 10,000 miles or so the engine would barely idle, due to 50 psi compression in one of the cylinders and 100 psi in another. You could hear the bad cam with the puffing of the exhaust. I am sure by then the cam was totally wiped out. Engine burned no oil at 161,000 miles.

So there is 1 engine I wore out. I didn't rebuild the engine because the rest of the car was also pretty much shot also.

So 22 years old and 161,000 miles the 318 V8 engine was no longer serviceable. By the way, at the end fuel mileage around town was only 8-10 mpg.

Curious as to who else actually has worn out an engine.


Was the cam in the engine a roller or flat tappet cam?

 

[antonmnster]

My other half had a 1983 Nissan Sentra. Ugliest car I've even seen. It had remote rear locks that had levers in the center counsel that operated cables to the rear doors. It also had the most annoying carb I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

I don't remember the miles, probably around 130,00-140,000. It was so worn it didn't have enough compression to hold itself parked in gear on any kind of an incline. It burned so much oil that on startup it would smoke out an entire zip code.

We sold it to someone else who I swear ran it without oil for months. I knew it was out of oil because it wouldn't smoke. Eventually it just ran out of compression and wouldn't run. It never seized like I expected it to.

 

[Kruse]

Originally Posted By: Donald
Originally Posted By: zfasts03

It was a 1980 Chrysler 318 V8, in a Chrysler Lebaron 2 door.


Was the cam in the engine a roller or flat tappet cam?


On a 1980? Hydraulic flat tappet for sure.....
20 years later the Jeep 4.0 was still using hydraulic, flat tappet lifters.

 

[bullwinkle]

Originally Posted By: Donald
Originally Posted By: zfasts03
Just curious. I'll start out with the only car engine I ever wore out.

It was a 1980 Chrysler 318 V8, in a Chrysler Lebaron 2 door. It was my first car. I started driving it when I was 16 years old with with ~44,000 miles on it (1988). So I do not know the prior maintenance, but assumed it was good, because the rest of the car was good.

I was into cars and did all the repairs, learned a lot and became an auto technician.

Oil changes between 2500-4000 miles.
Over the years I used:
-Quaker State Deluxe 10w-40
-Valvoline All Climate 10w-40
-Castrol Syntec 5w-50 (synthetic) which cause front main seal leakage, then replaced seal
-Castrol GTX 10w-40
-Couple times used Valvoline 10w30 turbo formula.

NEW VALVE SEALS AT ~100,000, due to blue smoke on startup.

Well lets say, being young (age 16-29) I ran the heck out of it. Much of the time the RPM's were in the upper end with me getting the most out of the engine.

Well 1st signs of mechanical engine problems was at 90,000 miles when I replaced the lifters due to a ticking. I noticed that some of the lobes of the cam were worn severely, but the car still ran good and putting a cam in it was too much of a job for me at the time and I figured I would only have the car a little longer. Well a little longer turned out to be another 70,000 miles and many years. When the valve covers and intake were off for the work the engine looked fairly clean, medium varnish, no sludge, but some hard junk in the valley under the intake.

When I finally put the car to rest, by driving it to the local junk yard getting no money for it back in Nov. 2001. Here were the problems.

For the last 10,000 miles or so the engine would barely idle, due to 50 psi compression in one of the cylinders and 100 psi in another. You could hear the bad cam with the puffing of the exhaust. I am sure by then the cam was totally wiped out. Engine burned no oil at 161,000 miles.

So there is 1 engine I wore out. I didn't rebuild the engine because the rest of the car was also pretty much shot also.

So 22 years old and 161,000 miles the 318 V8 engine was no longer serviceable. By the way, at the end fuel mileage around town was only 8-10 mpg.

Curious as to who else actually has worn out an engine.


Was the cam in the engine a roller or flat tappet cam?
'80 318 was a flat tappet (AFAIK), I also had an '80 LeBaron wagon with the "leaning tower of power" slant 6 225-the HIGH PERFORMANCE version with the 2 barrel carburetor-I don't think it ever broke 10 MPG in it's life, even with a rering job & new rod bearings & valve job. That one still ran good when I sold it though, for $600 around 1997.

 

[bigjl]

Never wore an engine out like the OP, this may be due to luck or the fact I never used to own cars for long.

I did sieze one, driving back from Scotland through the night, in a '82 Ford Escort estate with a 1.3 cvh engine. Drove from Birmingham to North London flat out it took just over an hour to do the 90 odd miles on deserted motorways.

Checked the oil just before Birmingham, and the next day when I tried to start it the car was siezed solid, checked the oil level and it was dry!

A victim of youthful exuberance and ignorance.

I fairly soon started to look after my cars better.

I bought a '99 Seat Toledo tdi which had VW Golf/Bora underpinnings, bought it new in March '99 and put over 140k on it in 18 months then got rid.

It showed up on eBay earlier this year and had less miles on it than when I sold it, lol.

But as most diesel cars are used for higher than normal mileages I suspect it had the best part of 300k on it at least.

I phoned the owner and he said it was still the original engine and gearbox!

So at least my regular oil changes helped it have a good start to life!

 

[Gabe]

A really good friend in high school had a 2 door '96 Geo Tracker. The Tracker died at 165K with a rod thrown through the block. Oil was Super Tech at 3K OCI.

A moderately expensive repair is normally what parks cars around here. People just do not want to put money into repairing an older car. We had a guy last month that didn't want to spend $500 for a new plastic intake manifold (Ford 4.6). The car was in amazing condition otherwise.

 

[wrcsixeight]

I had my 318 rebuilt at 172k miles. I noticed more noise and lack of power. A compression test revealed two adjacent cylinders read equal and low, and later it was found to have a cracked head, not a failed head gasket.

I am not sure when that happened, as it never indicated it was running hot, except for years earlier when the t stat got stuck half way open and the gauge did not rise to the red, just above normal.

There was an episode of a failed TBI injector which caused bad stuttering and surging which is high on the suspect list.

I was there when the rebuilders tore it down, and besides a lot of carbon in the CC's, the rest of it was not in visibly bad condition at all, and I don't really think the rebuilders did a good job, but I am approaching 30k miles on the rebuild, and a recent fill of Mobil 1 0w-40 seems to be very well loved by the engine.

 

[Dakota1820]

ive thrown a rod in a cavalier (imagine that) but have never worn an engine out. hearing engine die before 200,000 makes my saturn seem old she has 210,000. compression is still in the 205-210 range.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Donald
Originally Posted By: zfasts03
Just curious. I'll start out with the only car engine I ever wore out.

It was a 1980 Chrysler 318 V8, in a Chrysler Lebaron 2 door. It was my first car. I started driving it when I was 16 years old with with ~44,000 miles on it (1988). So I do not know the prior maintenance, but assumed it was good, because the rest of the car was good.

I was into cars and did all the repairs, learned a lot and became an auto technician.

Oil changes between 2500-4000 miles.
Over the years I used:
-Quaker State Deluxe 10w-40
-Valvoline All Climate 10w-40
-Castrol Syntec 5w-50 (synthetic) which cause front main seal leakage, then replaced seal
-Castrol GTX 10w-40
-Couple times used Valvoline 10w30 turbo formula.

NEW VALVE SEALS AT ~100,000, due to blue smoke on startup.

Well lets say, being young (age 16-29) I ran the heck out of it. Much of the time the RPM's were in the upper end with me getting the most out of the engine.

Well 1st signs of mechanical engine problems was at 90,000 miles when I replaced the lifters due to a ticking. I noticed that some of the lobes of the cam were worn severely, but the car still ran good and putting a cam in it was too much of a job for me at the time and I figured I would only have the car a little longer. Well a little longer turned out to be another 70,000 miles and many years. When the valve covers and intake were off for the work the engine looked fairly clean, medium varnish, no sludge, but some hard junk in the valley under the intake.

When I finally put the car to rest, by driving it to the local junk yard getting no money for it back in Nov. 2001. Here were the problems.

For the last 10,000 miles or so the engine would barely idle, due to 50 psi compression in one of the cylinders and 100 psi in another. You could hear the bad cam with the puffing of the exhaust. I am sure by then the cam was totally wiped out. Engine burned no oil at 161,000 miles.

So there is 1 engine I wore out. I didn't rebuild the engine because the rest of the car was also pretty much shot also.

So 22 years old and 161,000 miles the 318 V8 engine was no longer serviceable. By the way, at the end fuel mileage around town was only 8-10 mpg.

Curious as to who else actually has worn out an engine.


Was the cam in the engine a roller or flat tappet cam?


Flat tappet. Roller cams don't usually wear out. In fact I've never seen one that has.

 

[hemitom]

!973 New Yorker 440 Which was well worn but not dead, aways ran valvoline 10w40 , used to burn a quart in 800 to 1000 miles which i felt was very good, This car never had an easy mile under my command, at the end it was pushing a quart in 500 miles this was with 180000 on the clock, and it would still push past 120mph. Only problem cracked a head from overheating which was my fault. Oil was always changed at 3000 miles, I never really understood the 4 quart sump on such a large engine.

 

[OVERKILL]

Not really "worn out", but I had a valve stick, smack a piston and break the head off, causing some rather significant damage to a 1974-vintage Chrysler 440 in a Century Coronado. The engine was going to be too much money to rebuild, so it is getting a 302.

 

[RF Overlord]

Originally Posted By: bullwinkle
"leaning tower of power" slant 6 225-
LOL...I love it.

Those motors were practically indestructible...like the Chevy 283.

 

[Chris142]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Roller cams don't usually wear out. In fact I've never seen one that has.
Roller lifters are great! Ocasionally a needle bearing will wear out and that causes the roller to skid on the cam which destroys both.

I wore out a 2.6L Mitsubishi in a 1986 Mits pickup. My dad bought it brand new for my graduation. @34k it needed a valve job due to a burned valve.

After that the rings went away. It got so bad that the only way to start it was to pour oil down the carbureator throat. The oil would seal the rings and once it was running it would stay running until you turned it off again.

The crankshaft broke @ 44k at the #3 main bearing which doomed that engine.

I replaced the engine with a low milage one from a wreck and it seemed to run well. I traded the truck to my dad and he doulbe gasketed an oil filter a few weeks later. So that truck went to the scrapper with only 45K on it.

It was constantly breaking down. The 2 engines were the last straw.It had multiple transmissions replaced(I can think of 5), broken body mount,oil leaks from everything and it caught on fire 2x and both times the hood had to be repainted.

Truck was a Lemon for sure.

 

[Corvette Owner]

I own a 1998 Corvette, the book "All Corvettes are Red" detailed the development of the C5 (1997-2004) Corvette. It was the first car that Chevy designed an engine (LS1) to go 200,000 miles. I would say that the average life for a car engine would be in the 100,000 to 150,000 mile range. I have had more problems with car transmissions.

Only engines I ever had that went bad were: 1) a 1964 Corvette engines (twice), that I abused, and 2) my 2001 Impala at 40,000 miles that wiped an obviously defective cam (they covered under warranty).

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: Donald
Originally Posted By: zfasts03
Just curious. I'll start out with the only car engine I ever wore out.

It was a 1980 Chrysler 318 V8, in a Chrysler Lebaron 2 door. It was my first car. I started driving it when I was 16 years old with with ~44,000 miles on it (1988). So I do not know the prior maintenance, but assumed it was good, because the rest of the car was good.

I was into cars and did all the repairs, learned a lot and became an auto technician.

Oil changes between 2500-4000 miles.
Over the years I used:
-Quaker State Deluxe 10w-40
-Valvoline All Climate 10w-40
-Castrol Syntec 5w-50 (synthetic) which cause front main seal leakage, then replaced seal
-Castrol GTX 10w-40
-Couple times used Valvoline 10w30 turbo formula.

NEW VALVE SEALS AT ~100,000, due to blue smoke on startup.

Well lets say, being young (age 16-29) I ran the heck out of it. Much of the time the RPM's were in the upper end with me getting the most out of the engine.

Well 1st signs of mechanical engine problems was at 90,000 miles when I replaced the lifters due to a ticking. I noticed that some of the lobes of the cam were worn severely, but the car still ran good and putting a cam in it was too much of a job for me at the time and I figured I would only have the car a little longer. Well a little longer turned out to be another 70,000 miles and many years. When the valve covers and intake were off for the work the engine looked fairly clean, medium varnish, no sludge, but some hard junk in the valley under the intake.

When I finally put the car to rest, by driving it to the local junk yard getting no money for it back in Nov. 2001. Here were the problems.

For the last 10,000 miles or so the engine would barely idle, due to 50 psi compression in one of the cylinders and 100 psi in another. You could hear the bad cam with the puffing of the exhaust. I am sure by then the cam was totally wiped out. Engine burned no oil at 161,000 miles.

So there is 1 engine I wore out. I didn't rebuild the engine because the rest of the car was also pretty much shot also.

So 22 years old and 161,000 miles the 318 V8 engine was no longer serviceable. By the way, at the end fuel mileage around town was only 8-10 mpg.

Curious as to who else actually has worn out an engine.


Was the cam in the engine a roller or flat tappet cam?


Chrysler phased in roller in the 80's...I think M-bodies got them for 1986.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Never worn one out personally.

The 460 in my uncle's F250 bent valves when the timing set failed; about 170K on the rebuild. (Before that, it ran perfectly and had good oil pressure & ring seal.)

In high school, my friend got a good deal on a 1979 Chevy K-20, with a 305/auto/NP203. It was kind of a beater (and was this hideous 70's-issue burnt orange), but seemed to run OK, and had a snowplow and new tires. We were doing a post-purchase check, including greasing the front end (that truck must have 20 fittings!), flushing the radiator, and changing the oil. I noted that as the oil drained, it looked kind of thick. We filled with 10W-40...and it sounded like a drum solo. My uncle (a top-notch mechanic) went over the engine and informed my friend that he'd been screwed: the rings & bearings were shot. The seller had filled the pan with what looked like straight 70-weight oil to cover it up. It held 5psi at hot idle with 20W-50, and it had 85-90psi in all holes. He started saving for a motor...and fate intervened: that was the worst winter in 50 years. By Thanksgiving, he'd made enough cash plowing to pay for the truck. By spring, he'd made something like eight grand. Despite its condition, that worn-out 305 fired up even in zero-degree temperatures. In April, he was on a Home Depot run for his father, with a pallet of paving bricks in the bed (redoing the patio). Merging onto the highway, he punched it, since he was trying to accelerate 3+ tons to 65MPH with an engine that managed, maybe, 120HP. Just before it shifted into high gear, the engine came apart, spectacularly. We only found six rods and half the crankshaft, one piece actually dented the frame as it exited, and when we pulled the motor, the only thing keeping it from actually splitting into two pieces was the intake manifold & timing cover!

The truck got a GMPP 350 crate engine. He still has it & still plows with it.

 

[JTK]

I've never had a vehicle last long enough for the engine to wear-out. I can say the same for my entire family. Unfortunately, the vehicle itself tends to fall apart around the engine where I live.

In the 1970's and early 80's this used to happen alarmingly fast. 5-6yrs maybe? Now you can still nurse a ~1996-97 along if you're lucky. Not real common though.

Joel