Progress, Chrysler engine assembly line.

[Oldiron440]

I get a kick out of the crank protectors for installing piston/rods, they're fool proof.

 

[old yellow 78]

Wow! There must be at least 25 people at work in that factory! Well, 20 at least. Five or more seemed to be just standing around doing nothing. Things sure are looking up!

 

[Oldiron440]

Not much of a human touch in new engine building. I found the process interesting, it's not some old guy putting them together one at a time .

 

[old yellow 78]

Yes, it is interesting. Just very striking to me how few people there were. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

 

[Oldiron440]

Considering how many miles can be gotten from new motors it can't be all bad.

 

[Aspen500]

At work, we regularly get cars and trucks in the shop with 250,000-300,000 or more miles, on the original engine, and they still run as smooth as new and burn little to no oil. Of course, they also have been well maintained and used only full synthetic oil since new. Same goes for the automatic transmissions. Quarter million miles and they still shift perfectly. Again, the ones that have been maintained and not abused.
I remember 30 years ago car dealers would put 100,000 mile vehicles on the back lot for sale "as-is" or send them off to auction because the engines burned so much oil and had blow by up the ying-yang and the transmissions were mushy. Now you see used cars at new car dealers with 200,000 in the front row. That's providing they're only a few years old and not perforated full of rust holes.

 

[volare 1977]

It seems like there is hardly any reason to check the oil on these new cars unless your experiencing issues or have high mileage. I remember when I would check the oil when I gassed up many years ago.

 

[old yellow 78]

I was somewhat sarcastically making reference to the loss of jobs than to the improved quality of todays engines, which is in part, but surely not entirely due to automation.

 

[Oldiron440]

Have you been into a sixtys or seventys motor that has oversized lifters or ŕod or main bearings ,and I've heard of odd piston sizes but never seen them, all from a factory assembled motor?

 

[Oldiron440]

Chrysler had a system for dealing with poor quality control and that was odd parts, try buying oversize lifters for a 318, the way this is dealt with in a machine shop is to bore the lifter to a Ford dimension and use Ford lifters or bush the lifter bore to the mopar size, about $500. More jobs yes, better products no.
I think the consumer wins here.

 

[Aspen500]

It seems like there is hardly any reason to check the oil on these new cars unless your experiencing issues or have high mileage. I remember when I would check the oil when I gassed up many years ago.

It depends on the make, model and engine. If you have a GM 3.6L, 5.3L (especially with cylinder deactivation) or Ecotech (or really most any GM engine from the past 10 years), I STRONGLY urge you to check the oil every couple weeks. Those engines love to eat oil. When you do an oil change and drain out 2 or 3 qts, and the capacity is 6qts,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,well, you do the math. Ford, Chrysler and most Asian cars don't have much of an oil consumption problem. Come to think of it, GM is about the only one for the most part. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

 

[Oldiron440]

My daughter had a oldsmobile with a cad 3.7 that would use a qt in 2000 miles my other daughter had a cavalier with a 2.0 and it never used any oil change to oil change. Now my youngest had a neon with a 2.0 that would use a qt after the 3000 mile mark between 3k and 4k on oil changes.....?

 

[7T8 Custom]

My daughter had a oldsmobile with a cad 3.7 that would use a qt in 2000 miles my other daughter had a cavalier with a 2.0 and it never used any oil change to oil change. Now my youngest had a neon with a 2.0 that would use a qt after the 3000 mile mark between 3k and 4k on oil changes.....?

Driving style maybe.Lead foot? Throttle is an on\off switch?

 

[Aspen500]

I was talking oil consumption more like a qt in 500-1000 miles on some of those engines whether they have 50,000 miles on them or 150,000 miles. Partly not enough ring tension and partly a poor PCV system that sucks oil right into the intake and partly who knows. It is what it is.

 

[Oldiron440]

The cad motor and cavalier were good little motors, cad had 200k when we sold it she put 155k on it and the only thing I did to it was a crank position sensor at about 95k, the cavalier had the pulley tensioner go out and the belt split so half the belt took out the power steering pump, waterpump and crank seal. But it ran great. The neon ran great after a idle air valve replacement but had piston slap to the point it made me nervous and we sold the car at 115k, it was do for a timing belt also.
As far as driving styles the first two were hard on brakes and alignments..