2.7 engine

It is easy to see someone who not only never changes their oil, but never even checks the level. Since I don't know if any commonly available car engine that can survive this, by your definition, all engines are poorly designed. Obviously, I think your definition is poorly designed. :-)

Matt

Yeah, I may have been exagerating a bit, but the fact remains that a person with this engine has to be very aware of how it is treated, or they will suffer the consequences.

But the average buyer usually doesn't do a lot of research on a car before they buy it. They typically buy a car because they like the way it drives, the styling, etc. Most of the people in my area that I have talked to didn't have a clue that their 2.7 could develop serious problems, with one family finding out the hard way when their '00 intrepid lost it's engine at 120k miles.

The 80 mile commute is certainly good for any car; the more you drive it the longer they tend to last. However, I wonder what would happen to your 2.7 if you stopped using MMO. If one has to add something to their oil just to make sure their engine doesn't blow up, then in my opinion the design of the engine is poor.

I remember a few months ago (or at least I think I remember :) )that you said that you were going to take the oil pan off because of a stripped bolt, and inspect what things looked like. I was just curious if you did that and if you took any pictures.

Thank you! I am glad to see that someone agrees with me

That is my take on it. Bill Putney is doing great with his, and I am glad to hear that. However I am not sure if I would be comfortable taking a car with this engine on a long road trip and have to "gamble" whether I make it back or not.

Absolutely agreed.

I did enough research to know that (1) It has a timing chain and not a belt, and (2) It is inteference. Wasn't crazy about fact (2), but combined with fact (1), everything else being equal, I prefer that combination over interference with a timing belt. The better gas mileage of the 2.7 with the recent high fuel prices was a happy accident side bonus.

What I did not see in the research until *after* I bought it was that there were reports of severe sludging followed by catastrophic failure (IOW, everything else was *not* equal, comparing the 2.7, 3.2, & 3.5).

Up to that point, I fit the profile you just described to a "T".

I was fortunate that I started using MMO right off the bat before I even knew there were potential sludging problems, that and my daily highway driving (and probably mostly highway driving and somewhat routine oil changes in its previous 58k mile fleet car life).

Good question - but I'm not about to experiment to find out (if just highway driving w/o MMO would prevent sludging). 8^)

Agreed, but as the saying goes "We are where we are" (meaning after I bought it), so I took appropriate measures (made sure I continued with the MMO, and was determined to keep the oil change interval below 4000 miles with 3000 mile goal, and change filter with each oil change).

You have a good memory. I would have done that several weeks ago - had made arrangements to have a junk yard pan drain plug threads helicoiled. Due to a comedy of errors, about the time I was ready to swap out the pan with the helicoiled one, the replacement pan got damaged - very frustrating. I cut my losses and ordered a factory new pan last week - it will probably arrive tomorrow, or Wednesday. It might be a week or two before I make time to put it in. You can be sure that I will take pictures of the inside of the pan and bottom end of the engine and post links to them when I do - unless it shows that the MMO did not work, in which case you will never see me post about this again. Just kidding - I will post pics regardless of what they show.

Bill Putney (to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with "x")

Agreed!

That's the extent of it. Poor designs can be made to work, to varying degrees of success, with sufficient extra vigilance in maintenance. The A604 and its spawn are another example. The 3.0 litre Mitsubishi V6 is another. The GM CS100 alternator, the Ford AXOD transmission, etc.

DS