Most reliable consumer automotive engine. Your opinion.

[bjoehandley]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Chrysler 2.2 yet :dunno:

ive taken mine from 96k to 139k with a bad wrist pin. still chugging along and sounding like a diesel. I've rarely seen them with over 200k though.

Had 190k on mine before I crashed it, got 30mpg with my 17 year old foot firmly planted to the floors wherever I drove the 85hp beast

That probably has more to do with the cars they were attached to :laugh:

I had a couple of the 2.2 Turbo cars, the '85 I had ran till 150k when I think it jumped the timing belt (I had been running it kinda hard the night before and it had been running hot prior to that), but the body was so rusted that I ended up buying my XJ and scrapping it. The other was an '88 and I hadn't been paying attention to the oil in that one and scrapped the motor at 112k, gave it to the president of the local Shelby-Dodge club and he swapped another turbo motor into drove it some, sold it and it was run even more. Don't know what ever happened to it after that though. The '88 never seemed to run as good as the '85 did, even though the '88 was a Shadow coupe while the '85 was a larger, heavier Lebaron GTS hatch with leather interior:dunno: One day my sister was driving the heavier GTS while I was in the lighter Shadow on the same stretch of road and she left my ass behind, even though the weight difference between her and I shouldn't have been too far off the weight different between the two cars!

 

[FlexdXJ]

what argument? that was a statement. I've had several STOCK, well maintained Hondas, and they didn't hold up to my abuse. i averaged 2 motors a year, plus transmissions (manual, not automatic). If they didn't spin a rod bearing, they smoked like a chimney. If the car had any real torque, it'd rip itself apart. I've built things out of legos with more structural integrity. The one with the higher mileage (172k) rattled more than my jeep. I've had probably close to 30 vehicles at this point, and the Hondas were by far the worst of them. And i even owned a Chevette if that tells you anything. If you drive like a little old lady, they're probably fine, but i'm very, very, not nice to the right pedal.

Ok, so be like my brother and not change fluids. Worked for him.....

 

[xjtrailrider]

Top gear is doing a thing on clunkers, and they have a crown vic(lived life as a taxi) with 42x,xxx miles on it.

Crown Vics are tough as anvils, My neighbor down the street bought one at gov auction with 220k on the clock. He is still driving it as his travel car for work and it has over 400k on it and no major repairs that he has record of.

 

[87manche]

what argument? that was a statement. I've had several STOCK, well maintained Hondas, and they didn't hold up to my abuse. i averaged 2 motors a year, plus transmissions (manual, not automatic). If they didn't spin a rod bearing, they smoked like a chimney. If the car had any real torque, it'd rip itself apart. I've built things out of legos with more structural integrity. The one with the higher mileage (172k) rattled more than my jeep. I've had probably close to 30 vehicles at this point, and the Hondas were by far the worst of them. And i even owned a Chevette if that tells you anything. If you drive like a little old lady, they're probably fine, but i'm very, very, not nice to the right pedal.

you must be hard as hell on a vehicle, because my accord with 175K miles on it is still tight and rattle free.
and the 91 civic I bought for 300 dollars was still in good working order, just rusted badly. I put a battery in it and drove it for 2 years before an act of my own stupidity(rage really) killed the motor. Amazingly that little b motor stills tarted and ran, even after I drove it till it seized with no coolant.

Top gear is doing a thing on clunkers, and they have a crown vic(lived life as a taxi) with 42x,xxx miles on it.
And a ford festiva that the beardguy swears on
Figured that was worth mentioning/relevant

I had an Aspire,an Escort and a 323. All had the Mazda B-block motors. They deserve mention. built for turbos orginially, but N/A in the states. bulletproof. Burned a hole through a piston in the 323 because the timing was like 20 degrees advanced. dropped the pan, took the rod and burnt piston to machine shop, had new piston put on the rod, put it all back together and kept driving it. Never bothered to even look at the bearing tolerances. Used in some form or another for like 20 yaers by Ford, Mazda, Kia and anyone else.

 

[streetpirate]

Ive seen a 1.9 in an escort that was running well at 350k with only the valve guides replaced (freak anomaly, parents used it for cash for clunkers) and a 1.5 crx at 360k that ran awesome until run out of coolant and siezed

 

[MNgopher]

Surprised to not really see the Ford 4.6l V8 in this list, other than the Crown Vic reference. Not a super powerhouse, but the question was reliable and they go, and go, and go... Owned two of them in F150's and hands down required less unscheduled maintenance than any other gasoline engine I've owned.

 

[FlexdXJ]

Surprised to not really see the Ford 4.6l V8 in this list, other than the Crown Vic reference. Not a super powerhouse, but the question was reliable and they go, and go, and go... Owned two of them in F150's and hands down required less unscheduled maintenance than any other gasoline engine I've owned.

They put the 4.6 in trucks?

 

[Darky]

what argument? that was a statement. I've had several STOCK, well maintained Hondas, and they didn't hold up to my abuse. i averaged 2 motors a year, plus transmissions (manual, not automatic). If they didn't spin a rod bearing, they smoked like a chimney. If the car had any real torque, it'd rip itself apart. I've built things out of legos with more structural integrity. The one with the higher mileage (172k) rattled more than my jeep. I've had probably close to 30 vehicles at this point, and the Hondas were by far the worst of them. And i even owned a Chevette if that tells you anything. If you drive like a little old lady, they're probably fine, but i'm very, very, not nice to the right pedal.

You're the only person I've ever known to have bad experience with a Honda engine. You sure you're keepin oil in them?

They put the 4.6 in trucks?

I think it may have been a different 4.6 though.

 

[mrrbby]

That probably has more to do with the cars they were attached to :laugh:

Good motor, pretty underpowered. Really bad if you had the auto trans. However, hard to kill. A family friend had a 84 Reliant 2.2 auto that he put up to 240k on. He bought the car at 80k, and this poor vehicle maybe saw four oil changes during his ownership. IIRC, the trans died about the same time the suspension wore out. Tough car, but it was a crapbox.

I owned three horizons w/the 2.2 and a 5spd. They held up to the abuse, but the cars themselves were garbage. Fun, but not worth dumping money into.

Any mention of the ford S6 300? I remember those being a pretty rugged motor.

 

[Milford Cubicle II]

A friend of mine builds a lot of 2.2's for the 4 banger class dirt track racing. Apparently once you zero deck the block and throw on a higher compression head gasket they really come alive. There were a couple things involving the head too but I can't remember what they were.

 

[bjoehandley]

There were a couple styles of head for that motor IIRC. I think the difference was chamber size and want to say the early 2.2 heads had a larger chamber than the later 2.2/2.5 heads had, just can't remember when that change over was, but my '85 and '88 should have had different heads. If that is right, the early heads over the later turbo pistons would drop the compression and allow for more boost. If that's right, mill the block and use the early n/a pistons with a milled later, small chamber head, you should get some serious compression out one using factory style or junkyard parts!



Just in case anybody is curious, I want to say the standard n/a carbed and tbi engines were around 9.5:1, all the SOHC turbo motors were around 8.5:1 (think the Maserati and Lotus DOHC motors were too), and IIRC the n/a carbed Shelby motors were around 10:1 by way of a milled block.

Just don't hold me to these, it' s been damn near a decade now:wow:

 

[NW-ZJ-SCOTT]

I'd have to say the 5.9 CTD is the most reliable..

IMO

 

[Cnickgo]

what argument? that was a statement. I've had several STOCK, well maintained Hondas, and they didn't hold up to my abuse. i averaged 2 motors a year, plus transmissions (manual, not automatic). If they didn't spin a rod bearing, they smoked like a chimney. If the car had any real torque, it'd rip itself apart. I've built things out of legos with more structural integrity. The one with the higher mileage (172k) rattled more than my jeep. I've had probably close to 30 vehicles at this point, and the Hondas were by far the worst of them. And i even owned a Chevette if that tells you anything. If you drive like a little old lady, they're probably fine, but i'm very, very, not nice to the right pedal.

You must really like the veeetech bro (bazinga)! Or you have formulated a completely biased and uneducated opinion. I'm leaning towards the latter.

I'd put up the B and D-series from Honda high on the list, with the 22R(E) and SBC.

Oh... and how can we forget the aircooled VW?

 

[Matthew Currie]

Oh... and how can we forget the aircooled VW?

With the exception, perhaps, of the last generation of pancake bus engines with sodium filled valves (the one shared with the Porsche 912), I would be pretty hard put to rate any aircooled VW in the "most reliable" class. I did once take one of those over 150K miles. They were great engines in their own peculiar way, but their tendency to suck valves and blow up into little pieces puts them pretty far down my list.

They got a reputation for reliability back in the days when the standard life expectancy of a car was a hundred thousand miles, and their competition, Renaults and Fiats and the like, were hard put to make it past 30. But by any current standard I think any engine that needs a valve job every 40K is out of the running.

 

[Beezil]

Gm 2.8 with a blower

Hands down

 

[bjoehandley]

Gm 2.8 with a blower

Hands down

They never built a supercharged 2.8, 3.1, or 3.4 that I remember, I want to say there were some turbocharged 2.8 or 3.1 motor that was done by ASC for the Pontiac Grand Prix Turbo.

 

[Darky]

I daresay the man was being sarcastic...although my Mom and I had an 86 2.8 that ran us over 350k before we sold it. The only issue we had was the brakes and horrible rust being in NY. This was in an S10.

 

[Matthew Currie]

I daresay the man was being sarcastic...although my Mom and I had an 86 2.8 that ran us over 350k before we sold it. The only issue we had was the brakes and horrible rust being in NY. This was in an S10.

Long time forumite Rich P reported some time ago that he had an S-10 with a 2.8 that went well over a half million miles. I can't remember the exact figure, but it was ridiculously high - six hundred something, I think. As I recall, he said he could have gone further but he messed with it trying to fix the oil leaks, and apparently disturbed its chi or something.

Where is Rich anyway? Anybody heard from him recently?

 

[XJEEPER]

what argument? that was a statement. I've had several STOCK, well maintained Hondas, and they didn't hold up to my abuse. i averaged 2 motors a year, plus transmissions (manual, not automatic). If they didn't spin a rod bearing, they smoked like a chimney. If the car had any real torque, it'd rip itself apart. I've built things out of legos with more structural integrity. The one with the higher mileage (172k) rattled more than my jeep. I've had probably close to 30 vehicles at this point, and the Hondas were by far the worst of them. And i even owned a Chevette if that tells you anything. If you drive like a little old lady, they're probably fine, but i'm very, very, not nice to the right pedal.

243,000 on my 98 Accord V-6 and it still averages 27mpg and doesn't use oil between changes.

 

[FlexdXJ]

243,000 on my 98 Accord V-6 and it still averages 27mpg and doesn't use oil between changes.

My best friend bought his 95 accord with 160k and it has been raped up to 300k and its still going somehow.