Alright let’s have the dregs. No brand loyalty here! If it’s crap it’s crap. I’ll start. GM 2.8 V6. Never seen anything with that motor make it much past 100k and that was with lots of help along the way. Just. Trash.

Yugo 1.1

Well,,,,,,,,,,,, I had a stellar, for the times, 2.8. I sold it at 185???K but saw it go over 265K. Again, not bad for the era.

But for the record, how about a couple of the diesels Ford used after parting ways with Navistar? They were so bad that life long Ford phreaks left the brand, & others went back to gas.

3.0 Toyota v6. Have had two, should have learned my lesson the first time

250 chevy integral head. Crack-a-palooza.

Yes 2.8 GM had a weak bottom end, poor oiling system, lots of spun bearings.

The vega engine.

4-6-8 cadillac, engine ok, cyl mgmt was not.

I had that gutless wonder in an 82 Chevy S-10. Sold it with 102K miles and a freeze plug gave out on the buyer's drive home from the bank.

I drove a ‘90 or so S10 with the 2.8. It actually held up well.
Never got to see too many miles. Totaled with maybe 75k on the clock.

The olds diesel was a giant POS.

Whatever was in the Chevette!

the Ford Y block... early Vega (pre iron liner)... Pontiac 301... GM 5.7 diesel (aka "Lu Lu") & the 6.2 diesel ("Dark Cloud Special")... Caddy 4-6-8 & 4100... almost anything British... just to name a few...

Anything from Subaru - I know multiple people who’v had major bottom end problems inside of 100k miles.

Oldsmobile V8 diesel


Jag V12’s were/are epic pieces of $hit

I don't remember the details of the AMC engines, but many of them had a horrible reputation.

The GMC pickups, Diesel heads on a Buick block.

umm?... you Olds man!...

Ford 6.4l diesel, Ford 6.0l diesel. 1.6l mini cooper,
4.0l Bosch Land Rover are the worst 4 I’ve owned in order.

Folks hate on the ford 6.0 and for good reason. But it’s younger brother the 6.4 is far worse....

Speak bicycles & you might be in your element.

Some AMC engines,,,, in their day were solid.. The 258 I-6 belongs in the better engines of all time category. Not pickin dude, go to best engines thread & look.

The 6.0 u could fix... the 6.4 ?, not so much!...

R4360 P&W

You are nuts.


The Y was a good family.

That Vega engine with the aluminum block was a POS. I had one and it blew the engine on my way back to Fort Lewis after a weekend leave at home. Had to hitch a ride to base, then borrow a buddie's car to tow it to base so I could figure out what to do with it. It was just the excuse I needed to put a V8 in it....

Ford 6.0/6.4 diesel, Aluminum block vega, GM 5.7 olds diesel, Ford 351M/400, Dodge 2.2 4cyl.

Anything with Tecumseh written on it.

I was just thinking today…the auto industry is constantly changing but never perfecting anything.

Constant recalls problems with reliability safety etc.

Seems most are just engineered to meet a certain profit margin and price point anymore.

Gonna keep driving my 20 year old Duramax

I just had my 6.2 Chevy gas have an mis because of lifter. 5000 dollars down the tube. I’m not exactly a happy camper. Less than 70000 miles and nothing but easy duty. Crap. Edk

aww, C'mon man... i love my Indian head engines ...it's the Briggs i have trouble with!...

Oldsmobile diesel

Oldsmobile 330

Chevrolet 307

Ford 4 cylinder turbo

i forgot about those!... we couldn't keep em in stock at the Salvage Yard.... main bearings!...

forged crank in the 330's... fits in any Olds small block!... 307 Chevy's were cam eaters for some odd reason, bad run of cams maybe?..

Briggs and Scrap iron industrial. Cummins triple nickel. 04 -05 6.0Ford we had a fleet of 57 of those on a job in Russia. We had more problems with the transmissions than we did with the engine. We had a 25mph speed limit on the job site which caused most of the engine problems.

Rush 1300, I believed it was called, used in Simca automobiles. Used more oil than gas. It drank Areo paraffin recycled 30 weight by the gallon. What didn't leak,, dusted skeeters effectively. Bought it in Twentynine Palms for $50 and drove it north. It gave up the ghost in Elko. Got $10 for it, and bought a 52 Chevy short box for $90, and drove it to Pendleton. Had it for about a year, and upgraded. Would like to have the 52 Chevy now!

The 3.0 V8 in the Triumph Stag. Widespread serious problems with the cooling circulation, failing timing chains, block warping and terrible QC.

Carbonized oil around the pushrods near the heat riser passages- - - - -jammed the pushrods and the drag on the lifters wiped out cam lobes. Usually #4 or #6 cylinder. Engines running 10W-40 oil had the most problems, causing GM to deny warranty coverage on any engine running that weight oil in the mid-1980s. What GM would NOT say was "Don't run Quaker State 10W-40". Field service engineers would admit it privately, but they would NEVER put it in writing.

Don’t tell my dogs their ride could have broken down at any point in the 12 hours to and 12 hours from the pheasant fields this past weekend. Hit 200k on the ride home.

Quaker State had a bad run of oil in the late 70's? as i recall... they wound up footing the bill on a lot of their customers engines... we ran from that schit, used Kendall, Schaeffers & Wolfs Head...

sold one those Stags to the bad loan debt collector at the local bank... he loved it... when it ran!... lol

The Yugo 55, followed by an old Maytag washing machine, kickstart, 2-cycle engine.

It wasn't uncommon to see the Maytag's fitted to the rear frame of a retired Derby Car with
a wooden lever, tensioning a drive belt on a pully attached to a rear Derby Car wheel.

1950s Fargo. This not uncommon activity got all the kids in the neighborhood's attention and
they and their dogs would run behind the sputtering derby car - and soon a local
police car would also get into the spirit of the fun - But not think it funny.

A mate of mine had one, but not for long. Looked good, sounded good too when it was running, but completely unreliable.

i have over 222000 m on my 6.4 no engine problems just some wiring stuff😊

norm

good news for sure... seems like most folks do nothing but piss on them though... bro's got an 01 7.3 with very low miles... should last him the rest of his days...

I musta set a record. Had over 300,000 on a 2.8 in a Citation X11. Never had a single problem.

WTF?.. with a carburetor... you walk on water...

GM 305 V8.

Those Ford V8s with Loctite spark plugs.

The 1ZZ-FE or 2ZZ-GE (I forget... maybe both).

Good engine, but the casting was FUBAR... (i.e. minor CV axle impact cracked the engine block).

...and the infamous Cummins 53 block or the KDP in the 12 valves...

In fairness... less than 5% of 53 blocks actually had a problem... and the KDP is fixable.

Ram 5.7 and 6.4 gassers like eating lifters

My Vega with aluminum block and steel sleeves. I bought it brand new and less than 2,000 miles took back to dealership. They said the rings have not seated yet. I was putting more oil in it than gas. It never got any better, dealership wanted me to pay for an oil consumption check. I told them I was already paying for the oil consumption check all the time since new. Then they wanted me to pay to grind the valves. I said HELL no. I tried to sell but no one wanted the damm thing. Sold it finally to an individual at a hell of a loss. They knew they had problems but ignored them.

307 Chevy cam was not hardened properly would get eaten by the distributor gear and the timing would go off.....

GM didn't start retrofitting that engine with steel sleeves until 1976. A cousin bought a new one in 1971. It started drinking oil almost immediately.

^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

6.4 isn't bad, just takes money. Stock, yes. Alot of downsides especially since it was only produced for a couple years.

Mine runs great but crappy mileage. Bullet proofed and deleted. I'd rather have the 7.3 but whatever

Yup, an 84, with a carb. It was a nice car.

Worst engine design of all time.

Agreed,

There are many who lost to AMX's who would disagree. And the 258 inline 6 was unstoppable. Lived on into Chrysler days as the 4.0 in the Jeep

I say they were soft cams. went thru 3 cams after maybe 3000 miles on a gmc 350 until a guy told me to get a cam from a speed shop. that lasted

took the car companies 20 years to get over the Arab oil embargo where they made total junk which allowed japanese cars to get a foothold and in fact the US economy never recovered from the embargo which is why there is a 35 trillion dollar deficit and a trillion a year paying interest on it

I rember a Detroit diesel that you needed to put a pan under into catch the oil that dripped out over night ,it had a compression release that you had to pull then you get the starter spinning and let go the release to start the thing. I think the mechanic called it a 250 fuel squeezer ,the drivers just called it a weak ass piece of crap

"The Y was a good family."

If you kept any y block engine long enough you would have valvetrain oiling problems. They even had aftermarket kit to fix the problem because Ford engineers couldn't figure out how. I helped a friend install an aftermarket kit on his '56 Ford 312" y block engine.

Navistar Maxx Force. 40% EGR!!! Really, what were the engineers thinking??

Olds diesel was pretty bad. Dad had one, FIL had one. Those engines seemed like a good idea, just weren’t. They’d go 80K or so. After his diesel died, FIL retrofitted his Olds with a 350 gasser. Dad traded his Olds before it crapped out.

I had a later diesel Suburban. Nothing but trouble. Should have gone with a 350 gasser. But the diesel sounded like a good idea. Hmm….

Live and learn. Tuition gets expensive.

DF

Plastic crankcase lawn mower engines.

I once took a weedeater engine apart to find it had a plastic piston in it. I couldn't believe it lasted long as it did. They do produce some really strong plastics now.

Ford F-250 and other Ford Garbage Triton motor's that ate spark plugs 1997-2003!

HS 58

I bought the helicoil kit for the triton motors. Saved money and made money off those engines.

the Y blocks would sludge up and block the oil feed to the valvetrain... required a complete teardown to clean it out(or an oil bypass kit to route oil back to the top)... also, many of them wouldn't hold a rear main seal... seen grown men cry!... the stacked double port design didn't breathe well either... 283 Chevys ate em for lunch!... the FE series was a much better design IMO... YMMV...

They would live with clean oil.

Precisely what is wrong with the Chevrolet 307?

Never saw one 283 that would run with a 292.

I guess they don't change oil where you are from....

Anyway the FE was a design....


The 283 was a good engine....that at least Chevy decided that pressure lubrication was a good idea for.

I had one, and after the head gasket upgrade it was great. They just don't have a lot of power. They all had the HG problem.

From what I've heard the Ford 5.4 three valve should be near the top of the list.

Hotrodders hate the 307 because they were a passenger car engine, and not good for much else. If you just drove them normal, they were fine.

best Y block i ever seen was in a Dumphy? X-55 Speed Boat... friends dad had it, that thing would haul ass in it's day (55 mph)... inboard, sounded cooler than schit!

or the 330 Olds for that matter... the 307 Chevy's had a rash of cam failures, prolly not the engines fault... the late design (64? up) olds V8's 330-455 were good runners and the most durable of the GM line IMO...

Where would the rotatory fit?

Good question Wabi.

They performed well for their size, but were not fuel efficient & started using a lot of oil long before the 100K mark.

Pretty much a fail I guess.

I've got about 350k on my 3valve and still runs great

230k on mine. Runs like a top and is still on the full mark at it’s 10k oil change.

Ford 1.6 direct injection.

My wifes denali did that at 46000.
Thank goodness one of the few times I bought an extended warranty.
Traded for GX 460 but I’m sure if there is a bad one out there we probably got it!

The air cooled 1600 cc engine in my VW van was the worst engine ever. When you blew a valve through a piston, you got the engine rebuilt, and 6,000 miles later, it blew again.

Ford 5.4 Triton. The ticking time bomb !

One thing about it though

Ford circles their mistakes with a blue oval !!!

Chevy Volt electric motor....

The nylon timing chain sprockets were bad enough..

air cooled V-Dubs require new main studs and an align bore/hone of the main bearing housings when they are rebuilt... or else they will seize up in short order... this according to the professional rebuilders back in the day... been our experience as well...

You have to shim the valves about every 3500 miles on those engines.

But a well thought out car.
Had rear window defroster to keep your hands warm when you had to push it.

Not an automotive engine...but I have some alfalfa growing neighbors that will swear that the little 5 hp Briggs and Strattons were the worst in the world. They came on various brands of wheel lines. Their life could be measured in hours sometimes. This is back in the 60's through the 80's. One rancher finally bought a couple pallets of them and changed them out on the spot. Four bolts and an allen head setscrew...back in business. At any given time, the ranch mechanic would have ten of them on the bench in various states of repair.
Ranchers were awfully happy when Honda's, Wisconsin Robin's and eventually Harbor Freight came on the market.

Had 3, still have 2, one with 278K, 168K on the other. Slightly more powerful than the 4cyl 22R. They've treated me well (so far).

60 ford and 4 cyl Vega
And just about anything made today

Yes. The guy I bought it from told me, "Be sure to adjust those valves at 3,000 miles." I thought that was BS, my dad didn't adjust the valves on his big Ford station wagon. I was 19 years old, and dumb.
4,000 miles later the engine blew.

Odd-fire Buick V-6. 2.8 GM.

Worst I can recall was the ill-fated GM 5.7L diesel in the Toronado and some pickups.. As soon as the temps got to freezing, those pos engines would NOT start..

LOL. Didn’t know this was a thing until I bought a 1970 Torino from a dealership that claimed they took it on trade from the original owner. Thought they were full of it with some story of an old lady driving it in to trade it in. But it was cheap, I always wanted one, and it was all original.

Drive it home from California. A few months later it wouldn’t start. Pulled the timing cover on the 302 and found a loose timing chain that had jumped time as the teeth were just little nubs and pieces of nylon visible down in the oil pan. Threw in a double roller chain, put an electronic ignition in the distributor, done new valve seals, and changed out the original water pump and it ran great till I sold it like an idiot.

Cummins 220 and 250 inline six engines had the compression release. When a Detroit quits leaking, pour some more oil into it- - - -it's empty!

Had an old Ford 360 that was a real dog. Hated that engine.

Built on a Gas block what could go wrong? V8-6-4 might as well be added to the list.

Brother had one. Oil change place fixed the problem. Didn't tighten the drain plug and oil drained and it locked up less than 5 miles out. They replaced the engine and brother replaced the Suburban.

+100 on the Vega aluminum block. Our Finance VP ~2010 came from Ford. Said that Ford was escrowing $3K per vehicle for every Navistar diesel that went out the door to cover warranty work...

The GM 5.7, 6.2 and 6.5 diesel.