Engine designs that have problems 22

[enginesrus]

Since the one thread I started, is headed way off topic, reason for this.
Engine designs that have problems or have had them.
I'll start with the 3 valve Triton.
This guy explains. Has data from others that deal with the same problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcN_WcGr4BU

 

[TugboatEng]

The fact that people buy BMW and VAG vehicles is proof that they don't care about "known problem".

 

[BrianPetersen]

I had two VW diesels that I took past 400,000 km, and the first one was in a model range with a big black mark in the Consumer Reports ratings.

Some of that big black mark was due to 1990s-era VW automatic transmissions. Mine was manual.

Some of that big black mark was due to sunroof drains becoming blocked and causing water to get into places that it shouldn't be. Mine didn't have a sunroof.

Some of that big black mark was due to various issues with the early VW VR6 petrol engines, which this model was a recipient of. Mine had the 1.9 litre 4 cylinder diesel engine, and it was bulletproof. And changing the timing belt was a reasonable do-it-yourself job, which I did myself a few times.

Some of that big black mark was due to certain electrical and electronic issues, and I will grant that the power supply for the instrument cluster was a weak point. Someone didn't do their cold-weather weak-battery validation well enough.

I sold that car with 462,000 km on it. Original clutch (although it was due), original transmission, original engine still running well, everything still worked. It needed to be taken off the road for a month to sort out various suspension-and-steering issues, and the paint needed attention to delay the onset of rust (it still looked good but you could tell that it needed attention), and as far as I know, the VW spare-time-mechanic who bought it from me, did just that and kept on driving. I saw it in a parking lot in a town near where I sold it some years later, and it still looked good.

It may have had the feared big black mark in Consumer Reports ... but my example was a good car.

 

[enginesrus]

So then if said engine has constant head gasket failures that is no big deal, and should not be redesigned to prevent it?

 

[TugboatEng]

That depends on the cause of the head gasket failures. I wouldn't redesign an entire engine due to a faulty radiator or head gasket design.

 

[wayne440]

Today it seems that the standard for engine durability is for most of them to make it past the warranty period, then if the head gasket lets, engine throws a rod, or whatever-
sorry, it is out of warranty. Looks to me like FCA/Stellantis addressed their issues with the Hemi by changing the warranty from 5 year/100K miles to 5 year/60K miles. Replacing wiped out
camshafts costs money.

 

[TugboatEng]

What was the warranty period on a Chrysler 440?

 

[SwinnyGG]

Today it seems that the standard for engine durability is for most of them to make it past the warranty period

The standard for engine durability for as long as warranties have existed has been for most of them to make it past the warranty period.

Warranty periods today are longer across the board - and in a lot of cases MUCH longer and more comprehensive - than the warranties from the era OP worships.

Todays engines are better in literally every respect... these arguments are straight up ridiculous.

In 1965 Chrysler was actually the first to offer 5 yr/50,000 mile powertrain warranties. This applied to every model sold from 1965 through 1972, except anything with a Hemi or 440 six pack; those models had 1 year and 12,000 miles, voided if the car was used in competition of any sort (ha ha).

In 1972 they changed the warranty for all models to.... 1 year and 12,000 miles. Why? Because the products they sold between 1965 and 1972 had not been all that reliable in the aggregate, and they lost MILLIONS of dollars on warranty coverage. Millions. Total Chrysler sales from '65 to '72 were over a million cars, and the average warranty cost per vehicle around that time was around $40. That's $40,000,000 in 1970 dollars.. that's an astronomical amount of money.

Sorry gents, but these fever dreams about bulletproof muscle cars from the 60s are total bull.

 

[enginesrus]

The cause for the failure is no bolts (fasteners) in the area to hold enough pressure on the gasket. Well that seems to be a common theme these days. This engine has other problems as well.

 

[SwinnyGG]

Are you blathering about Focus RS head gaskets again?

 

[TugboatEng]

Subaru's notorious head gasket failures had nothing to do with insufficient clamping force.

 

[CWB1]

In 1965 Chrysler was actually the first to offer 5 yr/50,000 mile powertrain warranties. This applied to every model sold from 1965 through 1972, except anything with a Hemi or 440 six pack; those models had 1 year and 12,000 miles, voided if the car was used in competition of any sort (ha ha).

And today the factories all warranty track failures under the regular 3/36 or better warranty. They'll even finance you a rollbar and time at their driving school as part of the vehicle purchase.

 

[LionelHutz]

Still more blathering, still no data.

 

[SwinnyGG]

And today the factories all warranty track failures under the regular 3/36 or better warranty. They'll even finance you a rollbar and time at their driving school as part of the vehicle purchase.

And on top of that, the fire-breathing halo models are covered by that warranty too.

 

[CWB1]

Yup. Given the high cost and low-volume I can understand warrantying those, the shocker for me is that they do the same with high-volume base cars.

 

[enginesrus]

Small OHV engine is the topic in above post. Data? How can an entity that is not the manufacture or main lead of the dealer network acquire data? The data offerings are the many websites and video's that show the continuous problems. And like any other consumer item that can at times just end up in a scrap heap, the true data that a manufacture has, probably doesn't even come close to the real number.
You know like home testing for covid, how many positives are not reported? Data in many cases is not relevant. When the engine is out of warranty, how can data be obtained? With all the aftermarket parts available it can not be done through parts sales. So the only data available is hitting the web, and seeing the common failure points and how those failures keep repeating on the same engine. When you constantly ask for data what do you want? Would you want to see page after page of website links? I don't think this site would want tons of that posted here. Nor would most anyone here even look at them.
If one was truly interested in data on this particular topic, just travel the country and visit shops that deal with the products. I know this (constant asking for data) is not a case of really desiring data, it is just an arguing point.
All this goofy abstract data hunting is the problem with engineering now. Just look at the problem and come up with a fix. This is the main reason all us consumers are stuck with costly junk that will not last, past a warranty period.
MCAS comes to mind, why fix it whats the data? Only 2 planes out of how many? Very low percentage why bother. That is what I see here when I post about these various problems.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

I think there was 400 ish delivered when it was grounded.


But they track the accident rate by hours flown or number of flights.

And Boeing didn't want to fix it. And at this rate the max 10 is not going to be certified before the certification standards change.

 

[enginesrus]

I used that as an example. The engines I'm talking about have a huge failure rate, and essentially no effort made to improve the design. But then it helps sell parts, service, and new engines. Biggest problem is it can put company out of business, and it sort of did. After seeing how things are going nowadays, maybe that was the plan.

 

[SwinnyGG]

When you constantly ask for data what do you want?

We (specifically, I) have been extremely clear across many of your threads about what data we would want in order to take your myriad complaints seriously, and have a real discussion about whether something is a problem, or not:

RATE.

Failure RATE is by far the most important data point. And it isn't just a point of argument. If you started one of these threads and said specifically 'Engine X has a failure rate of 8% on component B' after XXX number of average hours or miles, is this an engineering failure??' the responses you would get would be categorically different.

But you don't do that, because you have NO idea what failure rates are on the stuff you complain about. Example:

The engines I'm talking about have a huge failure rate

Ohhhhh really? What engines, specifically, and what is the actual failure rate? If you actually have these numbers I'll be shocked, but we'd have something to talk about.

MCAS comes to mind, why fix it whats the data?

If you don't know the difference between a design problem that kills 350 people and a design 'problem' that costs the owner of a 15 year old truck $2,000 9 years and 150,000 miles after the warranty expired... I guess. Wow. We cleared the shark by an even higher margin than I thought.

 

[JohnRBaker]

While this article is not directly related to engine issues, it's still an interesting read:

Car Brands With the Most Problems

https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/car-brands-most-least-problems

Note that with my new (June 2021) GMC Terrain, the only real problem that I've had is with the on-board navigation system (just like it was noted in the item above as being where most of the issues are appearing). It has stopped working a least a half-dozen times over the past year but of course, when I take it to the dealer, it's always working. They've replaced the data chip that has the maps, but it's not specifically the navigator that's shutting down, it's everything thing that connects to the panel where the chip is inserted, including the auxiliary audio connection (for my iPod), the iPhone connection for Apple CarPlay as well as the Bluetooth iPhone connection. When it's acting up, none of these things work. The radio works and no other electronics seem to be effected, but every associated with the navigator and connecting external devices, they stop working. In the first couple of months, it was happening quite often, however its been at least four or five months now since the last incident so maybe the last time the dealer had it, they did move something or tighten something that fixed the problem.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[CWB1]

Severity and frequency are two separate metrics. Failures with a high frequency usually just mean high warranty costs, failures with high severity often mean recalls, lawsuits, and possibly jail time. Harming the public is never statistically acceptable, repairs OTOH are expected. Reading the internet or asking a mechanic is a good way to identify common issues with any vehicle or product. The problem is that it tends to grossly misconstrue the frequency of their occurrence.

OEMs do closely guard their data streams and warranty databases to avoid misuse but don't doubt its accuracy for modern vehicles and equipment. Most vehicles stateside were self-reporting failures by the mid-Y2ks, and many were even actively reporting location and live data otherwise. They've built various profitable services around it like updating 3rd party GPS maps, theft/repo recovery, rental monitoring, predictive maintenance (swap parts before failure to avoid downtime), etc, and engineers find all manner of development uses.