Worst Engines

[gedcruise]

There are a couple of threads now running regarding the best engines. I think we have this backwards, since most engines are pretty good. Therefore, I am starting a worst engines ever thread. My nominee is the Vega 2.3l. I owned one way back when, and it used ungodly amounts of oil (like 1 qt every hundred miles). I removed the heavy iron head from the light alloy block around 80K and found deep gouges in the cylider bores. Oh well, I put the head back on and drove the car another 20K or so, buying Citgo 10W-40 at K-Mart for .29 per quart.
Who else has owned a really lousy engine, and what was it?

 

[55Test]

I think the Vega engine was nominated in the other thread a few times. Thinking back over the 11 years I've been driving and the cars I've owned, I can't actually say I've ever had a bad engine. By bad, I mean defective by design. I've only ever had one motor really go, and that was in my 89 Pontiac 6000 where the headgasket let go and cracked a head. The thing still ran though, but it was dumping a lot of coolant into the oil and down to the ground. That car had 240,000 miles on it when the headgasket went. I had an 88 Aries that had an incredibly noisy engine and IIRC didn't really run on all 4 cylinders but I'm almost certain that was from abuse/neglect. For some reason that car always ran out of fuel at the half tank mark. Had to dump fuel down the TBI to get it running again. Used to smoke bad too on startup. Oh, that Geo motor I had was bad too, typical 3 cylinder Geo valve wear from plugged EGR circuit. That's probably the biggest defect in an engine I've had, and even then those engines can be saved (before they wear) by cleaning out the EGR passages in the head.

 

[Trav]

I have to go with the Vega engine,followed VERY closely by the Cadillac HT4100.Others on my hit list are the original Corvair flat air cooled 6 that threw its cooling fan belt all to often,usually late at night in the dead of winter on a dirt road.One that can easily make both the best and the worst list Cadillac N* the oil guzzling piston slapping king.Notice something here?All are GM aluminum engines.

 

[LouDawg]

Here's the recent thread on "worst" engines (read: POS).
Biggest POS engine

 

[greglarsen56]

I can tell you why the Vega engines were so bad. They had an incorect amount of silicon added to the aluminum casting. Chevrolet was supposed alloy the raw aluminum they received from Reynolds Aluminum. Both of these companies operated plants in Massena, New York in the early seventies.

Reynolds proscribed the alloy to GM but it was not executed correctly in the Chevrolet plant. Thereby, the Vega blocks were much to soft.

 

[kcryan]

Catera 3.0L???

 

[55Test]

A friend of mine had an 85 or 86 Cadillac (smallish FWD) with the HT4100. Smooth, good on fuel but headgaskets went on it, then the rear springs came up through the rear strut towers.

 

[double vanos]

How about this? Any BMW V8 with the Nikasil block.

 

[Trav]

Quote:

---

Catera 3.0L???

---

The GM 3.0 in the re-badged Opel Omega AKA Catera is a good engine.
I would stay clear of all Nikasil blocks V8 or 6 cyl.

 

[Ray H]

Quote:

---

How about this? Any BMW V8 with the Nikasil block.

---

Not true. Those same motors did fine on Europe's low sulfur gasoline. The sulfuric acid byproducts from combustion of U.S. gas is what done 'em in over here. BMW replaced engines that failed for cars with 100K miles or less clocked. Ironically, fastideous owners who serviced their engines at more frequent intervals than BMW called for often made it past 100K miles before the inevitable happened. BMW's response to those poor schmucks? "Too bad, so sad."

 

[gedcruise]

I have heard this alibi before regarding BMW's Nikasil bores. I guess we should excuse BMW for having neglected to consider US operating conditions, including fuel, before offering the product. I know that I'd be okay with a manufacturer telling me that their product, for which I paid a premium price, was great, the problem was with my using US pump fuel in the car.

 

[Ray H]

So, blame the automaker for introducing advanced technology instead of the U.S. petroleum industry for peddling inferior fuel that ruins motors? Yeah, that works...

 

[brianl703]

Product is supposed to be designed to operate correctly in the conditions it is exposed to.

 

[Trav]

Quote:

---

So, blame the automaker for introducing advanced technology instead of the U.S. petroleum industry for peddling inferior fuel that ruins motors? Yeah, that works...

---

Many manufacturers have used Nikasil blocks and had poor results.This is not Advanced technology it is flawed technology.You seem to go right after the oil companies as the bad guys,when in fact most of the gasoline issues arise from federal and state mandated clean air standards.If there is any blame it should be first on the manufacturer for selling a product to an area not suited for the product and secondly with the environmental kooks who have an agenda to basically eliminate gasoline powered vehicles from our society.IMHO the oil companies are not the bad guy but a scapegoat,i.e the state sees the price of fuel drop and takes this as an opportunity to raise the gas tax,effectively keeping the price the same while lining the state coffers,but what happens when the fuel price increases?people do not blame the state for cashing in they immediately blame the oil companies.In Germany for example the state collects 3 times the revenue from every ltr of fuel than the oil company does.Sorry for the rant but i get tired of people taking cheap shots at every opportunity at the companies that keep this country running.

 

[GMBoy]

Who can forget the early 350/5.7L GM car Diesels. Everyone seemed to have troubles with them. However, real Diesel people knew how to take care of them better than the average Joe. So combining the bad design with people who knew nothing about diesels spelled disaster. My neighbor had one of the 1st 1978 Olds Delta 88 diesels. Loved it so much he bought a Pontiac Bonnivile with the Diesel a few years later - but kept the 78 olds. He owned a construction company which used Diesel trucks, so he had some experience here. My Dad watched these events and he bought an '84 Cadilac Seville with the Diesel. These guys never had trouble and I can only attribute that to the care and maintence they gave the cars.

Otherwise - these engines really gave GM a bad name there!

 

[Cutehumor]

how about engines that have coolant leaks like the GM 3.1L, 3.4L, Nissan 1.8L and engines with piston slap. and engines that consume oil like water such as Saturns.

 

[widman]

I can nominate the 1.4 Vtec Ford in my Courier Pickups. A very nice and peppy engine, but after 4 engines with spun bearings that threw rods through the blocks on 2 I had keys machined into the bearings. Now running nicely. I know of at least 16 of these engines that have self-destructed this way in the dozen or so that are in town.

 

[Lazy JW]

Quote:

---

I can tell you why the Vega engines were so bad. They had an incorect amount of silicon added to the aluminum casting. Chevrolet was supposed alloy the raw aluminum they received from Reynolds Aluminum. Both of these companies operated plants in Massena, New York in the early seventies.

Reynolds proscribed the alloy to GM but it was not executed correctly in the Chevrolet plant. Thereby, the Vega blocks were much to soft.

---

This makes sense to me. Something certainly went awry between the research/development and the production phase. I owned a Vega Wagon; after I put a steel sleeved block in it I had no further engine problems. In fact, I kinda like that little four-banger, it had the Holley-Weber progressive two-barrel carb, big radiator, and four-speed tranny. Pulled strong and ran nice. The engine was actually the best part of that car.
Joe

 

[gedcruise]

Hey, Lazy JW, I had a wagon as well. A neat little package, with room for four and their bags. A great handling car, as long as the road was smooth, and very good snow traction. I had the Rochester rip-off of the Holley.
I remeber that aftermarket linered blocks were offered, which FWIR, reduced displacement to two liters. Other than the cylinder bores, the long stroke also made her a fairly rough runner, although with lighter reciprocating masses, like with a Honda, an undersquare four can be quite smooth.

 

[amh]

I would like to nominate the ford/mercury 3.8L V6.

I bought my mother a '94 Lincoln Continental, the car had its oil changed regularly at 3000 miles, was treated gently by a retiree but the engine promptly expired at 71,000.

Later I found ford was covering up head gasket manufatcuring defect and in 2000 extended the arranty to 7yr 100,000mi. Of course the crooks I dealt with never admitted the problem.

No discussions with ford helped, their attitude was "it's past its warranty - your problem". I told them I have never seen and engine die at 70,000 miles - they keep whistling past warranty tune.

Asked around to see if anyone I know had problems with ford 3.8L found a colleague at work who had a ford Windstar engine go out at 65,000 mi - same tune from ford.

Will never buy a ford again!