Who has had a real engine failure?

[FCD]

Originally Posted By: supton
Originally Posted By: FordCapriDriver
Originally Posted By: Tdbo
I had a brand new 1982 Monte Carlo with a V6 in it.
Diving down the street at 25 MPH, the crankshaft snapped in half. This was with 3000 miles on the odometer.
After many issues with the vehicle (this was pre-Lemon Law,) I unloaded it at 13K. A family friend kept after me until I sold it to her. She bought it with full disclosure. By the time this car hit 21K, it had a new motor and transmission in it. This car was absolutely not abused, it was just that bad.
However, the check engine light worked flawlessly.

How did it just snap in half?


GM was just that good back then.

This is one of the earlier V6's, probably a 200 or 229. Split journals on the throws I think. To make a 90 degree V6 (reusing the 90 degree V8 tooling) with even firing a split journal gets used. But that leads to weak throws.

Oh i see... yes 90 degree V6s have bad vibration issues , Ford also made an oddball flat plane crank 60 degree V4 yes V4 m that needed a balance shaft to kep the engine from vibrating like an earthquake, i have also heard of some cases of cranks snapping in half on those engines.

 

[eddy21]

2015 Fiesta ST 8,500 mi . Started loosing coolant and hard starting. Than wisps of white smoke on start up. Took out plugs and #3 had noticeable coolant in cylinder. Dealer replaced engine. Never heard prognosis.

 

[emg]

#1: late-80s Rover 1.4 litre. Left me stranded at the side of the road with a blown head gasket twice before I got rid of it. Apparently a common problem with that engine, which I discovered later was probably due to a stuck valve somewhere in the cooling system.

#2: 1985 Lancia Voumex. Was working fine when I drove it home, and wouldn't start in the morning. I'd only just bought it used, and the dealer couldn't figure out what was wrong. They eventually tossed in a refurbished engine.

#3: Not mine, but one of my X1/9s had suffered a major timing belt failure before I bought it. They did a top-end rebuild, and it worked fine for the years I owned it.

Actually, my brother's Ford had the timing belt snap at around 20,000 miles. But that got a replacement engine under the warranty. Think it was a Mondeo, but I don't remember for sure.

 

[Ursatdx]

90 RX-7
100k and died at a red light.
Mazda charged me $600 to tell me it died. (Apex seals)
Found a low mileage rotary and sold it.

 

[Number_35]

I've had one actual catastrophic engine failure - when I was 20 I got this bee in my bonnet that I'd be better off with a domestic 6-banger than keeping my '71 Toyota Corolla. I bought a '71 Chevy Biscayne 4-door w/ a 250-CID inline-6 (w/ Rochester Mono-jet carb) and a 2-speed Powerglide. I thought that for $550 I'd gotten a real deal. Not the most powerful car, but I fully expected it to be very reliable. I was driving on the highway a week after I got it and it started making a hollow knocking noise that got louder and louder. Young ignoramus that I was, I dismissed it as lifter noise. Suddenly, BOOM, and the car ground to a halt. I made the mistake of putting a rebuilt engine in - the engine was fine, but the car was not worth spending $800 on. In the remaining months I kept it, I sunk money into it pretty regularly.

 

[artificialist]

Originally Posted By: supton
Originally Posted By: FordCapriDriver
Originally Posted By: Tdbo
I had a brand new 1982 Monte Carlo with a V6 in it.
Diving down the street at 25 MPH, the crankshaft snapped in half. This was with 3000 miles on the odometer.
After many issues with the vehicle (this was pre-Lemon Law,) I unloaded it at 13K. A family friend kept after me until I sold it to her. She bought it with full disclosure. By the time this car hit 21K, it had a new motor and transmission in it. This car was absolutely not abused, it was just that bad.
However, the check engine light worked flawlessly.

How did it just snap in half?


GM was just that good back then.

This is one of the earlier V6's, probably a 200 or 229. Split journals on the throws I think. To make a 90 degree V6 (reusing the 90 degree V8 tooling) with even firing a split journal gets used. But that leads to weak throws.

I was told that those cranks failed because not all of them were properly heat treated.

 

[bluesubie]

Not engine failure, but I had "lubrication related turbo failure" after ignoring Subaru's 3,750 mile OCI's because my uoa's looked good. Cost was around $2,000.00

 

[kschachn]

Originally Posted By: bluesubie
Not engine failure, but I had "lubrication related turbo failure" after ignoring Subaru's 3,750 mile OCI's because my uoa's looked good. Cost was around $2,000.00


What parameter in the UOA were you looking at to warn of a failure?

Just wondering, when I ran UOAs in college often times pending catastrophic failure was undetectable via standard UOA.

 

[Trav]

Blown up a few engines over the years. The one on my brand new Honda CBR 900 Fireblade was dangerous (high speed/RPM) but spectacular, Honda spec'd the too thin an oil which they quickly revised in a TSB once the blown engines littered the dealerships (Euro spec).
The others were typical bottom end failures from over building not very well reinforced blocks. I had a thing at one time for BB and nail head Buicks and some Pontiac motors 389 and 428. I had a built dual AFB 425 nail head, that was fun till it let go, it did last a long time all things considered.

 

[tig1]

I had a 66 Chevy Bel Air 6 cyl that broke compression rings and started pumping oil. I replaced the engine with a Jasper re-built that ran very well.

 

[HonorAndHonesty]

Originally Posted By: Panzerman
I bought a 1969 Cadillac DeVille that had been sitting for years. It was actually a suicide car the guy killed himself in it with a exhaust hose to the interior. Anyway, it sat a long time. I bought it from the son who looked like a doper.


I have always wanted to find a car like that and get a deal on it. Did he disclose the history to you? How did you find it? I know there's some on copart, but none cheap enough.

 

[HonorAndHonesty]

Originally Posted By: bcossa2001
Dad's 1969 VW bug #3 cylinder swallowed a valve at 80,000....


It was usually cylinder number three due to it running hotter from the oil cooler I believe.

 

[Fastcompany]

I'm a race car tech. I get to see totally destroyed engines all the time and have one [censored] of a laugh that it's not my coin. Seen a cylinder wall get chewed through by a wrist pin....the piston broke off and after they lost that cylinder they didn't stop right away. About 4000 revolutions later the wrist pin ate through the wall and bent the [censored] out of the rod and locked the motor up. So awesome

 

[L_Sludger]

I had a 7M-GE throw a rod on a Mobil 1 15w50 fill. (racing)

 

[MarioT]

Let me add my Hyundai Engine to this "RIP List". Retired early @72kmiles, due to a persistent upper block knocking.(No lube/cooling issues)

Teardown Album

 

[mightymousetech]

Usually drive my cars till at least 300k. Have never had an engine fail, or honestly, have never even had to fix an oil leak. This includes a couple racecars as well. I guess changing the oil at 5000 km has its benefits.

 

[chrisri]

I had some in my youth like Renault 4 Gtl, old Skoda and Audi 60, but those cars were cheapest I could find and very molested by previous owners and by me.

In recent years I had two major failures, one was Citroen Jumper 2.2 HDI with Ford Puma series sourced lump. At 80K km injector failed and burnt hole in piston which caused overrun. Engine was replaced under warranty.
Second was Fiat 1.2 Superfire (200K), again injector failed and piston hole. No overrun this time.

 

[CincyDavid]

I bought a 1981 Mercedes 240D with what I assume was a spun bearing...I wanted it for the manual transmission to convert an automatic car, so I set out to see what kind of abuse this lump would take.

I revved the heck out of it in first gear, on a big parking lot, there was a BANG and the sound of stuff hitting the ground...I coasted back to its parking spot, then went back to pick up debris...pieces of rod bearing, part of a connecting rod and cap, bolts, etc. There was a hold in the side of the block I could stick my hand in.

Sold the car as-is, for what I had paid for it, to the guy who wanted the transmission, pedal assembly for his car.

 

[JTK]

Way back when I first started dating my darling bride, she started her 1980 Buick Skylark on a cold winter morning. The carbureted 2.5L 4cyl revved out of control and threw a connecting rod through the block. I don't recall exactly what happened, but something jammed on the throttle cable/linkage. Startled her to the point she didn't think to kill the ignition, but my FIL said it happened in like 5sec.

 

[Olas]

At the top of third gear I went for fourth but got second. Additional crank case ventilation is a good thing, right?