Crappiest engines ever?

[Sigma Projects]

i really didn't like the 2.8L they put in some of the old blazers, V6 camaros and the fiero GT. Just a really lame motor, heavy, inefficient, and no power.

[omicron]

One of the first Australian-built turbocharged production cars was a 1981 Mitsubishi Sigma with the 2.0 Astron.

That worries me somewhat.

[Gotta-Qik-C7]

i really didn't like the 2.8L they put in some of the old blazers, V6 camaros and the fiero GT. Just a really lame motor, heavy, inefficient, and no power.

I had a '87 S10 Blazer with that engine. It would have been my choice if I hadn't owned that '80 Century.

[Sigma Projects]

sorry you had to go through those engines...

[Madman]

My mother once had a 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra with the 2.5 litre "Tech-4" engine.  I'm not really quite sure what "Tech" this thing posessed because it was an ancient, dog-slow, pushrod four-banger that was as rough as a sandpaper jock strap and sounded like an old tractor.  The Olds met it's fate when it was stolen by some teenaged joyriders who trashed it.  Insurance paid her far more than the damn thing was worth!

The Olds was replaced with a 1997 Ford Taurus GL with the 3.0 litre Vulcan V6.  This engine was a million years behind my sister's Duratec-powered Mercury Sable in terms of refinement.  That Taurus also had the clunkiest auto transmission I've ever had the misfortune to drive.  By another stroke of good luck, two girls in a Chrysler 300M pulled out of a service station and T-boned the side of the Taurus.  Once again, insurance wrote off the car and my mother replaced it with a 2000 Mercury Mystique GS 2.0 Auto.  This car is far superior to her old Taurus in every conceivable way.


Other notoriously bad engines which I have no first hand experience of include:

GM's Quad-4.  Mechanics I have spoken with tell me Quad-4 is a nightmare engine to turn wrenches on.  I only ever met one mechanic who liked working on those damn things.........and he was a bit.......WEIRD!

GM's 5.7 litre Diesel V8 is legendary for it's unreliability.

Volvo's B27 V6.  This engine was to be found in the old 260 sedan and wagon and the 262C Bertone coupe.  Volvo's version of the Peugeot-Renault-Volvo V6 suffered from poor cylinder head lubrication, leading to rapidly worn camshafts.  Also, being a 90 degree V6 with no balance shafts meant it was a rough running engine, too.  A later evolution of this engine, the B280, adressed the lubrication issues.  Peugeot's version of this engine, the ZDJL, used a counter-rotating balance shaft driven off the right bank cam to solve the rotational imbalance inherent in all 90 degree V6s.

Somebody also mentioned GM's 3.3 litre V6.  I once rented a 1993 Buick Century with this engine.  Given that everything else about this car was so unbelievably awful, I really didn't notice how bad the engine was.

That's all I can think of, for now.


Cheers,
Madman of the People

[Byteme]

i really didn't like the 2.8L they put in some of the old blazers, V6 camaros and the fiero GT. Just a really lame motor, heavy, inefficient, and no power.

I had an 84 Camaro with that engine and a 5 speed.  We installed a trailer hitch and towed a 17 foot Glastron bow rider with it.  I guess the boat with IO and trailer probably weighed about 2,200 lbs.  Of course this was in Houston, no hills.  We never had a problem at the boat ramps.

[the Teuton]

The Olds was replaced with a 1997 Ford Taurus GL with the 3.0 litre Vulcan V6.  This engine was a million years behind my sister's Duratec-powered Mercury Sable in terms of refinement.  That Taurus also had the clunkiest auto transmission I've ever had the misfortune to drive.  By another stroke of good luck, two girls in a Chrysler 300M pulled out of a service station and T-boned the side of the Taurus.  Once again, insurance wrote off the car and my mother replaced it with a 2000 Mercury Mystique GS 2.0 Auto.  This car is far superior to her old Taurus in every conceivable way.

The 125 hp Merc was way underpowered.  My brother's Duratec 2.5 Contour was moderately quick, but the old 2.0 was downright slow.

Also, I'd be willing to bet the Vulcan is more reliable than the Duratec.  I wouldn't call any of those engines terrible, though.

Somebody also mentioned GM's 3.3 litre V6.  I once rented a 1993 Buick Century with this engine.  Given that everything else about this car was so unbelievably awful, I really didn't notice how bad the engine was.

The parts for the engine were expensive, it got horrible mileage, it was slow, unrefined, they stopped making the engine after 1993, and overall the cars were just terrible.  I'll agree with you on that one.

[Madman]

The 125 hp Merc was way underpowered.  My brother's Duratec 2.5 Contour was moderately quick, but the old 2.0 was downright slow.

Seeing as this car is being driven by a 66-year-old grandmother, performance is really not a prioriry.  That said, I've driven it and I find the performance adequate.  Sure, it's no rocketship, but it gets the job done.

Also, I'd be willing to bet the Vulcan is more reliable than the Duratec.  I wouldn't call any of those engines terrible, though.

I never called the Duratec V6 terrible.  In fact, it's quite a good engine.  Fact is, neither my sister's Duratec-powered Sable nor my mother's Vulcan-powered Taurus had any problems with the engine whatsoever.  But the Duratec was a million times smoother, quieter and more refined than that Vulcan ever was.  The Vulcan's fuel economy was pretty poor, to boot.

I would also like to add Volkswagen's 2.5 litre inline five to the list of terrible engines.  Here's a motor that delivers the performance of a four cylinder yet guzzles gas like a six.  With all the excellent engines Volkswagen has at it's disposal, why did they feel the need to inflict this piece of mechanical misery on the North American public?


Cheers,
Madman of the People

[Eye of the Tiger]

Who said GM's 3.3L V6 was bad? I had one in a '91 Skylark, and it was great.

[r0tor]

our's in our 93 Grand Am GT cracked its plastic valve covers in a week of ownership, blew out a head gasket every 25k miles, and popped an coolant freeze plug at about 30k miles... all of which were pretty common failures

[Eye of the Tiger]

our's in our 93 Grand Am GT cracked its plastic valve covers in a week of ownership, blew out a head gasket every 25k miles, and popped an coolant freeze plug at about 30k miles... all of which were pretty common failures

That's just because Pontiacs are junk.