So talking to a few of my customers, one is a salvage yard, the other is a service garage.

The guys at the salvage yard told me that the Ford Powerstroke has a defect built into the engine, the heads crack at 100,000 miles each and every time and Ford actually designed this in.
The Duramax injectors go bad anytime after 100,000 miles.
The 6.2 and 6.5L GM diesels are junk they say, wont last longer than 250,000 miles before needing a rebuild.

Now the guy at the service garage told me that the Chrysler transmissions that are used in their mini vans self destructs around 80,000 miles, the diff inside the trans literally blows apart and destroys the case and all, no matter what you do it will fail.
Ball joints on the Chrysler's were designed cheap and to fail.
10 years ago Jasper rebuilt more engines than transmissions, now they rebuild twice as many transmissions as engines, that is straight from the Jasper delivery guy.
GM and Ford transmissions are made in China.
GM transfer cases have a clutch inside them, this clutch rubs on the casing and wears a hole, and then it leaks, and the only cure is a new t-case.

GM had to reformulate their motor oil, because they use a maintenance monitor, basically the computer tells you when to change the oil and you do not go by a set number of miles.
And because of this they are having a sticky piston ring problem on the high mile engines (over 100k) and people are complaining of excessive oil usage.
The new additive package will prevent this.

Honda has switched to a full synthetic 0w-20 motor oil to increase MPG by a total of 2mpg and it is over $8 per quart.
Toyota is expected to follow, so is Ford.

The new Chrysler 300 has a 8 speed transmission, but it shifts constantly and never stays in a single gear for very long, more shifting means increased heat and shorter transmission life.

So you guys think that head gaskets, a few leaks and the occasional odd noise is bad.

 

I can't complain about my Land Rover! She just likes to give me fits.

 

Yep, I agree, but it would be nice to have a good drop replacement, they keep showing those newer GM LS engines on Extreme 4X4 that makes me want one!

 

I think our problem is 40 years ago or so (when our motors were designed) 100,000 miles in a vehicle was a big deal. Therefore, nowadays, a vehicle is expected to soar right past that milestone of 100k, while our motors simply can't do that if not properly maintained.

 

I kinda agree Honda, if you bought a brand new car and never changed the oil and only kept it full of oil the engine would still last 100k.
BUT motor oil's today, even the cheap ones, are better than what motor oil was 20 years ago.

 

Valid point. If only experiments could be conducted testing off-brand versus name-brand, I'd really like to know if certain brands are better than others

 

They did a test like that in Consumer Reports about 10yrs ago.
They took a taxi fleet in NY City, rebuilt all of the engines and took measurements of all the major parts, right down to the micron.
Then they took all of the major brands of motor oil and used only that weight and brand of oil in 3 engines and changed the oil and filter every 6,000 miles.
Then after 60,000 miles they tore all of the engines apart and remeasured and then rated the oils based on engine wear.
They were all Chevy 4.3L V-6's, the cab drivers wear not allowed to add oil and no one was told what oil was in each car.
They also used various weights of oil between the brands.
They also used full synthetic.
So basically in 3 engines they used Quaker State 5w-30, then in another 3 QS 10w-30, then yet another 3 Mobil 1....
There was little to no difference in wear between the brands of oil of the same viscosity.
Full synthetic compared to dino juice was also almost no difference in wear.
They did admit to one fault in their study, all of these engines never got cold, these cars are ran 24/7/365 and it took less than one year to rack up the 60,000 miles on each engine.
So start up wear may be different between each brand of motor oil, their recommendation was to use a name brand motor oil and change it per the manufactures recommendations.

 

I mean as finicky as our trucks can be it is nice to know that certain things we don't really have to worry about, like the T-case or transmission (given proper fluid changes). As I learn more I'm discovering that the Discovery really isn't that hard to work on. But at the same time I feel that a lot of people take perfection too far. You see guys on the forum replacing everything, running synthetic in everything, replacing coolant every few months, freaking out over miniscule RPM differences... etc.

I mean if you can afford to be that meticulous then by all means go for it. However at some point I think you just have to, as my friends call it, "let it eat" and let fate be fate. It's a Land Rover, it's supposed to be tough, and if Royal Purple makes that much of a difference in 60's based technology then Land Rover is not putting their money where their mouth is.

 

Change early and often, things will run better, even works with elected officials....

 

Exactly 007, thats what I do, so what if my truck leaks alittle?
So what if the idle feels alittle rough to me (and no one else can feel it)?
Who cares about some scratches and surface rust?
I find it is the ones who are so meticulous and run all the "best" fluids and "love my truck to death" are the one who have the most trouble and are always the ones who bail at the first sign of serious trouble because "it's just to expensive".