Advisor
Tips & Tricks
The longest lasting engines
These engines will last you a long time!
The longest lasting engines
If you are currently looking for a new car or want to change your vehicle in the near future, you will surely be asking yourself how long the engine will last.
This is a pertinent question, whether you only want to use your car on the road in a conventional way, or whether you want to tune it. Because you certainly don’t want to risk all your toil, blood, sweat and tears ending up in the scrapyard after just a short time. If you are serious about boosting your performance, you’ll want to enjoy this for as long as possible. So here we will show you which engines last the longest, and what you can do to make your engine even more durable.
CONTENT
- 1. What is a ‘long life’ for an engine?
- 2. Care and nurture: The longest lasting engines get a lot of love
- 3. Get to know your engine’s teething troubles
- 4. How to increase your engine’s life
- 5. Turbocharged engines: Do they last longer than naturally aspirated engines?
- 6. Extend your engine’s life with the help of professionals
What is a ‘long life’ for an engine?
Here, opinions are probably divided, as it’s a very individual matter. It depends on how long you want to drive your car, what your requirements are for the engine, and what external challenges it is facing. If you drive your car in a temperate climate, at a moderate speed and without thrashing the engine, and it only lasts ten years even though you seldom drive it, then we can say with complete objectivity that this was not a long-lasting engine! If you take part in races, drive in extreme climates, give it your all on the motorway or drive tens of thousands of miles a year, it’s an entirely different matter. Therefore, first you have to define what a ‘long life’ means to you, and decide what your own priorities are.
Care and nurture: The longest lasting engines get a lot of love
For as long as he can remember, Bartek, the founder and boss of BAR-TEK®, has been taking engines apart and putting them back together better. When asked what model of engine lasts the longest in his experience, he doesn’t hesitate: “The engine that lasts the longest is the one that gets the most love.” One thing is certain: there isn’t one model that will achieve millions of miles in all circumstances. But if you care for and nurture your car and treat your engine well, this greatly increases your chances. The engine that receives the most care and attention will give love in return, in the form of a long life.
How to treat your engine well
- Warm it up and cool it down (not just for turbocharged engines)
- Run new engines in
- Use the right fuel
- Avoid over- and underrevving
- Check fluid levels regularly
- Adhere to service intervals
- Keep an eye on the rev range
These are just a few rough examples of how you can give your engine, and your car overall, some love. Other things can of course be added to the list, depending on the engine and the circumstances, such as oil changes, replacing spark plugs, etc. If the car is tuned, bear in mind that the load will increase as well. Then, you must ensure that all the necessary components are upgraded.
Get to know your engine’s teething troubles
Every engine may well have its fanbase, who sing its praises and believe it’s the best. But one thing is clear: every engine has teething troubles – without exception. And there are very simple reasons for this. Manufacturers are not able to put an engine through its paces for years on end. This would simply be too expensive and would take too long. They can’t wait ten years and drive tens of thousands of miles in all conditions just to weed out potential faults right from the start. That’s simply because, in case of doubt, it’s cheaper to correct the fault afterwards than to let ten years go by during the design phase. However, engine teething problems often only become apparent after years of driving. That’s why car manufacturers sometimes take a risk with the quality of their supplied parts. Recalls of certain (safety-relevant) parts are also no rarity.
How can you find out an engine’s typical problems?
Fortunately, there is a whole lot of information about which engine is known for which problems. Bartek himself always wanted to know exactly this, and was therefore a pioneer on the tuning scene: he took cars with a high mileage apart, noted the engine’s teething problems, and then treated them. And that’s why, today, we are able to name any number of solutions for each engine’s typical problems, and offer you tuning with perfectly harmonised parts. We can basically assume that the models of a series will have fewer and fewer teething problems over time. For example, the Golf 5 had entirely different issues from the later 1.8T engine, which is built with entirely different technology. As a rule of thumb, the newer an engine, the fewer problems it’s likely to have.
But if you are familiar with your engine’s classic problem zones, then you can also deal with them.
Here are some special features of typical VAG tuning engines:
You will find the differences between TFSI and TSI engines here.
How to increase your engine’s life
To make your engine last longer, the first essential is to treat and care for it well, as described above. And you can do a great deal beyond this, to also make it more resilient when the performance is increased. We’ve gathered a whole lot of resources together to save you many hours of searching.
- In our tuning guides, you will find complete guides for different engines, which will enable you not only to draw out the maximum performance but also to make them long-lasting, reliable, resilient and safe.
- Our tips and tricks provide you with accumulated knowledge from many years of tuning experience: from chip tuning to engine cooling all the way to the custom built exhaust.
- With our practical tools, the compression ratio calculator and the fuel injector calculator, you can measure the figures you need for your tuning project fairly quickly and easily.
- Specifically for turbocharged engines: our turbo tips and the 14 Turbo Rules
- Pistons and con-rods, in particular, are under a lot of stress and are vital factors for your engine’s durability.
- Another important element is the oxygen sensor, your engine’s ‘life insurance’.
- Oil coolers are also essential: they ensure constant temperatures and a sufficient oil system. In this way, they make a significant contribution to longevity.
Create comment
Please leave us a comment.
His first car was a Polo Mk1 with a 40 Weber twin carburetor and 129 PS (95 kW). His second was an Audi 50. Today Bartek tunes Lamborghinis to 1000 PS (735 kW). Even as a young boy, Bartek disassembled vehicles and put everything back together better. He wrote his high school diploma with oil on his fingers. The trained automotive mechanic with a focus on engines and gearboxes was determined to go into motorsports. In his 10 years in Formal 1, he supervised 73 races, including as engine mechanic for Ralf Schumacher at Toyota. Since 2010, he has dedicated himself fully to his company BAR-TEK® and helps his customers to bring VW and Audi engines to peak performance.
Expert in
Engine
Gearbox
