My top engines, based on miles derived, only receiving basic maintenance.
First. At my station in life, that’s all I can afford anyway.
-
2000 Volvo V70 XC (B5244T) Turbo 5. We just had to scrap this. We bought it with 250k miles (400k km), and in 3 years, it was up to 380k miles. The engine was still fine; except the valve cover gasket was going, and oil was getting into the cylinder heads (would’ve been an easy enough fix, but parts are getting scarce for this car). The real problem was a convergence of small issues that ended costing more to fix than the car was worth (brakes, cv joint, fuel line)
-
2004 Buick Century (LG8) V6. see also Kids! Man! (Farewell Buck). I bought this car with only 70k miles (impressive as it was 10 years old at the time), and drove it for approximately 180k miles longer (between myself, my niece, and my daughter). When we scrapped it, the engine was still running quite strong, as was the transmission. After an accident, and quite possibly a 2nd (still don’t know how she broke the strut), I had to get rid of it.
-
It’s not actually a reliable engine per se, but the CVH I4 of 2nd gen North American Ford Escorts, were incredibly easy and cheap to fix. No repair ever costed more than $500 (blown clutch), with most repairs being $35 at a U-pull lot; or in one case (actually, it happened on all 3 that I owned) with a pcv hose, that oddly enough autozone doesn’t carry, $1.25 and a little creativity. All 3 got me to 200K miles. The 2 stick shifts averaged 30+ MPG delivering pizzas! The automatic, not so much.