Whose Engine has died

In the spirit of a previous post about oil changes, I thougth I'd take a little poll. Who's engine (preferably BMW engine) has died and needed to be replaced.

If your engine has died, please tell us your story. How often did you change your oil? How often did you track the car? How often did you downshift into 2nd instead of 4th, etc

I'm on my 5th BMW and never broke one, despite driving all to high mileage (>120,000). I did have some other catastrophes:

In 1984, I broke a piston ring in a 1275cc MG Midget with about 85,000 miles. Should have been rebuildable, but I never pulled it apart to see as we sold the car and bought a VW GTI. Oil changes (always Castrol GTX) were very frequent, as I enjoyed working on the car and didn't drive it many miles.

About 1990, I dropped a valve in my Ford van with maybe 60,000. We owned this sucker from new, and after about 5,000 miles switched to Mobil 1. I saw the engine torn down and it was pristine. This was the factory HiPo 351 Windsor with double row timing chain, an Edelbrock dual plane intake and a Holley 4160, and it was supposed to be stronger than standard. Presumably the cause was a manufacturing failure, as it is hard to understand how you could over-rev a van with an automatic transmission. We used this vehicle to tow a race car, but that shouldn't be that hard on the valve train.

And finally, in 1991 during the SCCA Runoffs, I trashed the block in my race car (Showroom Stock A Shelby Daytona Turbo) when a floating wrist pin floated a bit too far and gouged a nice ~0.100" slot in cylinder number 4. I believe the circlip dropped out because of vibration related to detonation caused by an ignition timing issue (I never over-reved the car). Compression was not to spec after that.

Oil changes were done every race weekend, so figure about every 200 miles, and always with Mobil 1 as specified by the engine builder. I dropped the good cylinder head onto another block and went back to racing...

Broke a CV joint on lap 4- it just wasn't my week.

Logged 177K on my original '89 Toyota Corolla GT-S (4AGE) motor, mostly at 75-110 cruise speeds while stationed in Germany. Brought the car home and ran a compression check, all within 10% of original. MPG dropped from 31 to 28, but still runs fine. Presently in dry-dock, waiting a makeover and a rebuild. Used Mobil-1 at 3-5K religiously, and have no crud buildup on the top end.

Originally Posted by icemanjs4

In the spirit of a previous post about oil changes, I thougth I'd take a little poll. Who's engine (preferably BMW engine) has died and needed to be replaced.

If your engine has died, please tell us your story. How often did you change your oil? How often did you track the car? How often did you downshift into 2nd instead of 4th, etc

Blew up my V6 Eclipse. Let's just say CAIs, flooding and stupid drivers should not be mixed. and double-

*my car...* ------>

On the other hand, it got me out of an expensive finance deal and into 1.9% on a BMW. Hmmm...