I can never seem to find the bench life of car engines, or deisel truck engines. This spec is quoted a lot with weedwackers and lawnmowers but never quoted for car engines.
Does anyone know how to find this info? And I would probably want a functional spec such as putting a load on an engine similar to highway driving and figure the mileage, rather than hours.
Seems like it would be a tough one to answer since car engines last for such a long time. Things like proper maintenance and type of use would cause the life to vary greatly.
I can tell you that all my GM cars have gone well in to the 200K mile range with no problems other than water pump. They have all been maintained OK, I’m not a maintenance Nazi. The cars were/are all big heavy cars that go to wide open throttle every time I took them out. Big engine, big weight, hard use, oil changes every 5 to 7K miles - no complaints here.
Waiting for Sam Stone to come in and tell us about the WRX that will out last every living thing on the planet 
Fuel, your request is not unreasonable, yet you’re the only person who uses your vehicle the way you do. No outside party will compute meaningful data for you, as they lack the input.
Buy a diesel. Sorry, but I love the sound of a Detroit 8V92TA
Apology for the digression
Yeah, your point makes total sense. My driving style and maintenance habits would affect the outcome of my engines’ life considerably. But that’s not the real reason i am asking this question. I would like to compare engines of different companies. Hondas with GM’s and so on. This would put things into perspective so well when determining what car to buy or what credit to give what company for their engines. It could serve as a useful blueprint when rating engines.
It would be cool to tell if an engine’s bench life is up to par with the industry or sector standard. And these tests could be varied, such as using different oil and using different driving patterns. Honda would love to do these tests in order to definitively show that their engines are supreme to American made ones, right?
You guys understand where i am coming from here?
I think the American companies would like it more to show ignorant consumers that the days of the “inferior” American engineering has passed and they can hang with the Japanese manufacturers.
i would guess the reason no one rates car engines like that is because no one wants to buy a car after someone says “this engine will on average last to about 250,000 miles”
manufacturers want everyone to think their cars will last forever
but, for starters, two engines that you can put on the list of super dependable and long lasting are:
the buick 3.8L v6
why? this engine is probably one of the longest running designs still in use today… a history of this engine here
the lexus 1UZ-FE, which is the 4.0L V8… according to a lot of people here abroad, the replacement engines are easily bought for under $600, which is really cheap especially for a high tech dohc motor… the reason being they last forever… 300,000+ miles is no big deal to one of these engines properly maintained…
i think a good stat to look at regarding durability might be to check and see how long some older engines have been in use… most likely, (as in the case of the buick v6) the better the motor, the less reason to stop using it and replace it with something else.
the newer LS1 and LS6 engines from GM are also amazing engines that should last a good while, even when making amazing amounts of power…
gm also has some nice new engines coming out (the XV8, 12, and 16)… i should remember the inline six thats currently in the trailblazers.
oh yeah… toyota’s 3.0l supra motor… capable of handling amazing amounts of power… they usually last pretty long when not beat on too…
just some suggestions… i dunno really how you could go about doing this without a big institution backing you up, with a bunch of engines on stands, etc…
hey something clever, since you seem to know about certain engines, are you by any chance familiar with the 2.3l engine in the Ranger and Mazda small pickups in '96? My bro and I are always bragging about how he treats that engine like crap (cold starts it in first and immediately floors it) and it’s still outputting good power after a couple years. We call it the “tried & true, torquey 2.3”. It’s a little junior hoss that keeps running.
Anyways, does this engine have a good rep in the industry?
What about the 5.0l engine in the '93 caprice wagon (LS1?)?
well… the turbo 2.3 has been known to put out some good power, it came originally in the SVO fox body mustang and alot of people put them in rangers, or i guess maybe they just turbo the original 2.3
i think it was a pretty good motor, im not really familiar with it but ive never heard of anyone calling one a POS
and the 305 is an alright motor too…
when it comes to gm cars, most have their quirks but alot of them are good motors. but to me i think for a motor to be considered a really great engine it has to excel somehow… the 305’s last, hell they are in tons of cars, but to get one to make any kind of power seems like a pretty big chore. not a bad engine by any means though.
the LS1 and LS6 are the newer GM v8’s put in F-bodies and vettes… the ls1 was introduced in the 97 vette i believe, and then in the 98 f-bodies. the ls6 is the z06’s motor… both are 5.7l v8s… in the f-bodies the LS1’s put around 305hp to the ground (even though rated 305 at the crank) and the z06 motors are rated at 405hp (older ones 385) and most put almost that number to the ground. very stout motors… ls1tech.com and corvetteforum.com should be good examples of these engines…
I would be curious to see how long a Honda engine would last in a 3700# car. But then a 110 HP motor would not be stressing things too much.
Take a look at the engines used in marine applications for an idea of what lasts and for how long. But you are looking for miles and marine engines use hours - what you are not looking for.
With modern machining, most engines are pretty good today.
The GM V-8’s from the 60’s have always been outstanding engines.
I know there is a growing element that believes American quality has caught up to the Japanese. Granted, American quality has improved greatly. However, there is at least one person that doesn’t believe that.
Recently, the top guy at General Motors (President, CEO?) was quoted as saying that it is the intention of GM to have their quality equal to the Japanese in 4 years. Hmmmm???
Seeing they have been working on this project since the 1980’s I’m wondering what the holdup is.
As someone who purchased a Ford truck (because I think that fundamentaly their quality is slightly better than GM) and a Toyota 4Runner on the same day, I’ll personally attest to the superior quality of the Toyota.
Funny, I heard the CEO of GM at the Detroit auto show say that the Japanese quality is just a perception due to over zealous marketing. A graduate level marketing class text book called the Jap quality a halo effect from the 70’s, due to the comparison of the big three’s first attempt at a small car.
What type of Ford truck did you buy? Last year I bought a Ford F-250 SD 4X4. It is waaaay better than the Toyota 4X4’s I have experience with during the last 15 years.
Toyota says only full sized with 4 piston calipers - false, most powerful full sized - false. Of course they say in its class - they must be seriously limiting the “class”
The Ford truck I purchased was a Ranger 4x4 Off-road. Same size platform as the 4Runner. Nice truck, buy overall quality doesn’t compare to the Toyota.
Toyota doesn’t have a truck in the class of the Ford 250. Their large truck compares to the 150. As far as marketing claims, EVERBODY does that. More headroom, larger towing capacity, bigger fuel guage, llouder horn, spiffier emblem, yadda, yadda.
The basis of my earlier post was the statement by the top guy at GM. He’s the guy that you have to convince. He just reinforced my experience from ownership and driving rental cars.
You might need to find the specs for individual components, since engines now are a homogenization (?) of parts from different divisions…uses…etc.
Engine block, cylinder walls
Valves rings, pistons
Cams, manifolds, crank, rods,
Pumps, etc
all have different durability issues from motor to motor.
I do remember reading that the standard for wear is 120,000 miles as a minimum in GM products. That is, everything is rated for 120,00 miles of typical use according to the maintenance schedule.
Like anything else, variables like weather, maintenance and driving habits will change the number.
Perhaps he was talking about overall build quality of the cars? American cars are always criticized for using cheap interior materials and mounting parts somewhat poorly. I can’t disagree about the interior materials of most american cars, but this is definitely starting to change too.
I do believe the whole Japan = reliability is an idea stuck in many peoples’ heads due to marketing and the quality of American cars back when emissions laws first came into effect. Those were some poorly designed engines.
well considering we are talking about engines and not the cars themselves…
GM has a new marine big block out…
simple idea… the more power an engine makes the more maint it will require. if you have the random d series honda making <120hp the engine really isnt getting anything near the pressures inside the average LS6 with about 400hp at the crank…
I do not mean to bust your chops but this is typical of the import/domestic comparisons that I hear about.
I did a quick search and found that the price range of the Toyota 4Runner is $28K to 36.5K. For the Ford Ranger, the upper end of the price range is three thousand dollars less than lower range of the 4Runner, $13K to 25K.
It is not unreasonable for a higher end and much more expensive truck to be nicer and of higher quality than a much cheaper low end truck.
BTW rental cars are typically not the nicest cars on the road
Alright, i take it there is no such info that i am looking for. Ah well. I won’t lose any sleep over this, but it would be nice info. If i were the CEO of GM, it would definately be on my mind to try marketing with this type of info, if it was financially feasible of course.
[thinkingoutloud]Maybe some company could offer a contract, would do the tests for them and then come to them and offer the results for a nice sum of money? Of course, if the tests turned up negative for them, this could be lethal information… i would actually think twice about this before opening up a can of worms like that. I guess the industry is not ready for that type of competition. [/thinkingoutloud]
I would be glad to do it. Also, if GM were to sponsor the test, I would not be disagreeable to signing a contract that would give GM the rights to the results of the test and agree to not speak of the results should the test not develop as hoped for.
GM can afford it and it is not uncommon for an org to keep the results of their studies secret.
I doubt if you could get any carmaker to pay you. I suspect that each of them has already done their own bench tests on their own and every competitors engines. I’m sure they have all the information and consider it highly classified.
Most advertising in the automotive industry is pretty civil. For the most part they really don’t advertise against each other other than very basic comparisons, “more horsepower than. . .”, etc. There’s probably no point in getting into engineering type pissing contests.
Engine design is pretty sophisticated business and is highly competative. Economic decisions are made based on expected engine life. They have to know this stuff. There’s too much money at play to make it a guessing game. While the “suits” that make the management decisions may make some dumb decisions the engineers have to be on the ball.