Yeah, only an idiot would think the 2.2 Chrysler was a bad engine. They were slow and underpowered like most engines of that era -- but the engine was super reliable because it was designed by the same engineer as the Slant 6.
It seems like this person is using modern 4 cyl and v6s to compare it. it actually had great performance compared to it's contemporaries. add a turbo, and it's got more hp than a chevy 350 (or a chrysler 318) at the time! a man by the name of joe mosler took a turbo 3 2.2l engine, and blew the doors of a 1989 corvette! Now, was the base trim 2.2L Plymouth reliant slow? yeah, but its a rocket compared to a chevy celebrity, or a ford tempo (growing up, my parents had all 3 such cars at one point.) From a maintenance standpoint, far too many people ran these things hot, which is not the end of the world for your 1977 dodge pickup with the cast iron 318, but could be catastrophic for one of these aluminum headed engines
Agree. I had a 2.2 in a fairly optionless 81 K car - it was fine for what it was. A cheap, economical box that held 6 adults. I had a Honda Prelude (91) that burned more oil than that 2.2 Chrysler. Not that I am a Mopar fan, but that engine certainly does not belong on this list. BTW, I raced a Pontiac Firebird with a 3.8L V6 and won with that 2.2 - not that it’s a big deal, just that is was not that underpowered and sluggish in it’s day.
@@evananderson3350 there has never been a Ford engine with plastic timing gears that I can recall. He may be talking about some of their fwd applications of the time that had the cam gears *pressed on* which would shift and cause the valves to flirt with the pistons in a salacious, and pernicious manner.
I'm still driving a 1989 Sundance with a 2.5, the enlarged version of the 2.2. Strong as an ox at 160,000 miles, and a long, long way from any sensible Worst Engines list.
The TBI era 2.2/2.5 are pretty trouble free. You can swap the Holley carb for a Webber in the original 2.2 to fix the issue with the feedback carbs. The noise is partly due to the lack of sound deadening in K cars and L bodies. The 2.5 has balance shafts that make the long stroke motor smoother. Head gaskets have improved since then.
People who maintain there cars usually have good luck. I've had customers ask me what kind of car should I buy. I always say what do you like. You can get a good or bad car no matter who built it .
I inherited my Dad's 1985 Omni 2.2 with automatic. The air conditioning was crap, it was plagued with evil spirits in the electrical system, and as often as not I had to crawl in through the hatchback because the door locks would snap down when I closed the door and lock cylinder would seize about the time the key was halfway in. It rusted, it leaked, the wheel bearings went out, the CV joints gave out within a thousand miles after the end of the warranty. The car was about as lousy as a car could be, but the engine and transmission were trouble-free.
@woolhat1 For all its faults, though, it was a well-designed car with a lot more room than one would have expected at that time, and it was quite a sight with a load of bicycles (including a Santana tandem) on the roof rack, the tandem's rear wheel out over the hood. That design deserved better quality control than Chrysler had at the time. I don't recall the car being fun to drive, but I do remember it spinning out on an Interstate on-ramp when I lifted my foot off the throttle in a rain storm (had new Continentals on it at the time), and I remember when it was the only car we had that wasn't sealed shut in the blizzard of '93 when I had to go out to the laundromat and the pharmacy, and it wouldn't drive into the wind, only downwind or cross-wind. Not enough traction and power to drive upwind.
I had a 1992 LeBaron sedan with the 2.5 and it was a fairly bulletproof engine. I had the car from 2010 to 2015. The only issues I had were age related, not design related.
Triumph Stag’s V8 was one of the worst engines ever built over here. What made it even more unforgivable was, that as part of British Leland, Triumph had free access to the superb ex-Buick Rover 3500 V8.
Yup. That engine sounds excellent though. I worked in a shop and a customer had a all original with the original v8 still in it. I always wanted to step on it to see how it performed but was always afraid to.
Should point out that British Leyland also had two superb Daimler Hemi V8s via Jaguar. However, timing was the issue as development of the Triumph V8 started in 1964 when Triumph and Rover were still independent competitors. By the time they became Leyland bedfellows Triumph had put a ton of cash and development time into the project and became too expensive to cancel it in favour of the Rover V8. The Stag was meant to go on sale in '68 but Triumph enlarged the capacity of the V8 from 2.5 to 3 litres (to increase power) which meant launch date was now 1970. If they scrapped the engine and went with Rover V8 then the launch would have been further delayed until 1971, this was deemed unacceptable as the Stag V8 was also meant for the Triumph 2000 saloon (facelift relaunch to replace the 2.5 PI) and the company needed a lengthy build run of engines to meet capacity demand. In the end the Triumph V8 saloon was scrapped due to the fuel crisis and as it turned out Rover just didn't have the capacity to produce V8s for Triumph as well as their own P5b, P6 and Range Rovers.
The 8-6-4 was a bulletproof caddy big block; the weakness was all the electronic bullshit they threw on it. If you disabled the deactivation, it ran great.
Exactly, there was nothing wrong with the Caddy 368 it was an extremely reliable engine. You do not condemn an engine due to crappy ancillary systems that can be removed or deactivated. The engine that should be on the list instead of the 368 is the Caddy HT4100. Now there is a steaming pile. It is easily one of the worst engines ever made by anybody ever. Also instead of the 2.2L Chrysler which was not great engine but was not terrible, the Triumph V8 on the other hand... is a far worse power plant by any measurable metric.
On Chrysler 2.2 liter the ones I drove, 83+ were reliable and did not burn oil unless you never followed the mfg maintenence requirements. Now the Ford 1.6 L did go through head gaskets as did all Mitsubishi engines.
And it was replaced with the miserable HT 4100 which was replaced with the even worse Northstar. Cadillac lost their loyal customers and was fatally wounded. Never recovered.
@@jamesdesmidt447 Most of my small family and friends have driven Mitsubishi's from 1978 onwards. We had oil consumption issues in a 1983 Galant, but up to this day, all others were very reliable and none of them needed a head gasket in their lifetime (we tend to drive them until around 150.000 miles).
The only thing wrong without the 2.2 Chrysler was poor maintenance and operator failure. People shut them down hot and the turbo would over heat the oil in the bearing. They where great engines that could give a 5.0 a good run.
One good thing about these engines, you were able to pull the oil pans off to replace the oil pumps. I got two of these cars real cheap that knocked on start up. I changed the oil pump and that stopped. The other thing I really liked about these engines was the easy way to change the water pumps. I put several hundred thousand miles on these puppies.
GM was just learning about Silica infused engine blocks, unfortunately the public was part of the endurance testing. They later utilized the process quite successfully in other engines. Vegas were great cars to take on camping trips, as they excelled at Mosquito Control
@@pjimmbojimmbo1990 And let’s not forget that the Vega was named Car and Driver’s car of the year three years straight. It’s cheaper to bribe a magazine than it is to build a good car.
@@boataxe4605 Very few Automotive Magazines were sources of unbiased reviews. They made money from advertising, not magazine sales. Same was true of the Hot Rodding mags. Every Intake Manifold ever reviewed was portrayed to make an engine more powerful, idle better, get better economy, etc. etc. Didn't matter if the intake was designed for an rpm range of 3000 - 7000, it would make your grocery getting into a top fuel dragster even with a 2bbl carb and single exhaust with muffler and resonator
I’m not a Mopar guy, but I really disagree with with the 2.2 on the list. They weren’t quite up to par with Japanese competition at the time but were very solid and would run a long time if you treated them right.
Maybe in the K-cars they were buzzy and underpowered, but I had a 1989 Plymouth Horizon (Dodge Omni) bought new that year, and had no issues with that powerplant at all. To be fair, I only kept the car up until about 75K miles, though.
I agree ,I think a lot of the trouble was using sub standard quality oil left in the engine to sludge up in a hard running 4 cylinder engine along with letting the anti freeze get too old also causing more over heating . .... ..
Really not a bad engine at all. I had one, timing belt went out at around 80,000 but it had non interference pistons. Other than that she ran real good and reliable for many years. Slow, especially with a/c running, but not a bad engine.
The GM 3.6 had/has a weak set of Timing Chains. When combined with Direct Injection, which produces a very hard carbon, the oil would bget containinated rapidly, the added to it was the extended Oil Change intervals on cars that were speced to use synthetic oils, resulted in rapid wear on the chains and eventually out of time camshafts. GM ended up warrantying those engines for up to 10 yrs and almost 300,000 kms. My STS has one of those engines, and had to have the chains, replaced, and they were, supposedly. Other than that the only issue I have had with is one bad ignition coil, and a leaky thermostat oring that seals a pipe to the housing. Since you have to pull the engine to get at it, and it only loses about 2 liters per year, I am not going to change it. If the transmission falls out out, I will look at while on the hoist and see it if the housing is accessible. That engine was designed for use with a Transaxle, which would have place the Thermostat housing on drivers side by the strut tower, but this car being RWD, has the engine mounted normally, with the crankshaft running front to back, which jams the housing against firewall behind/under the front cowl. Who ever engineered that, needs to be given an attitude adjustment
@@pjimmbojimmbo1990 On paper the 3.6 looks like a good engine. These issues are driving manufacturers toward electrification. As I tell people, what is the chance that the Commodore 64 in the attic will still work, or the component stereo from the '70s with play music? Aging electrical parts have their own set of issues.
@@pjimmbojimmbo1990 My Impala with the 3.6L is turning ten in a couple of months and still runs smoothly with tons of power on the original timing chains. 198K miles and the only engine work I had to do was the purge solenoid and the water pump. Both very easy fixes. The key to longevity: 3K mile Synthetic oil changes, flush coolant every few years, change transmission fluid every other year. Never carbon cleaned the valves, no need to really, just take it out on a full throttle highway run. Awesome engine in my experience.
@@int53185 What year is your Impala? And does it have Fuel injection or Direct Fuel Injection That alone will determine whether or not you will have dirty intake valves and timing chain problems
The olds diesels were not converted 350 blocks. That is a myth. The blocks and heads are completely different. The only thing the same was the displacment.
I have worked on a number of them. They were the same block as the 350 gasoline engine. The heads were different, the cam and lifters were different and the main bearings were different, but the basic block was the same. You could replace the vacuum pump with a distributor, change the heads and the intake manifold and you had a gasoline engine.
@@mikefrech1123 They may have appeared to be the same, but they are not. They were the DX blocks. Not the same as a 350 block. The cylinder walls and the webbing of the mains was thicker. I know becuase back in the day racers used to look for these blocks and put the gas heads on them becuase the blocks were much much stronger than stock gasoline 350 blocks.
@@mikehunt2190 yes they were heavier castings. I believe Warren Johnson used those blocks to build NHRA pro stock engines out of in the early to mid 80s
You could see the casting marks that indicated the location of the gasoline engine distributor. Total garbage. People paid more for a Cadillac that had the diesel, then had to sell it for a lot less on the used market for the same car with the gas engine.
I have had several and they were all junk. I' have a friend who has owned several K-cars that had the 2.2 and they were junk too. I always did maintenance and took care of my vehicles so that's not the cause.
I disagree with the Chrysler 2.2 ..I got 300k out mine then sold it still running fine and all I done was head gasket at 200k, never touched the bottom end. One of the best engines I've owned.
Yes I also must call bull 🐂 on your opinion of the 2.2 my build up of 2.2laser turbo ripped off 14.3 times .using all direct connection parts .many other 2.2 stories of high milage 2.2 L .early half shaft was an issue upon launch .
This is completely incorrect information. The 2.2l Chrysler engine was AMAZING. Perhaps is was a little noisy when the mileage added up but we had 4 of them, 2 with over 300,000m and they still started in the coldest winter, never plugged in and were wonderfully reliable. Big mistake on that one, BIG.
Absolutely agree, we had a few k cars as winter cars and they never quit! We want the heck out of them thru buffalo winters. The bodies always rotted away before the engine went. Yeah they rattled like heck but ran well. I don't agree it a tops worst engine....
The engine itself was ok. They did have a problem with head gaskets going every 150,000 miles or so. After the first year or two of production the head bolt diameter was increased to 11mm which helped some. The worst part was the Holley electronically controlled carburetor. Fine when new, but sucked when it and the computer/vacuum was worn. The Holley was also prone to carburetor icing as well as vapor lock (a factory retrofit fix was made because vapor lock was so common) . The whole set-up was difficult to rebuild properly. A Weber carb kit that cost 1/2 that of a rebuilt Holley fixed all that.
@@NoName-tz5ji I think we had 4 or 5 reliants, I'd run my friends v6 cameros and eat alive the 4cyl mustangs. They actually had a heck of a top end for their day. Who ever put that video together is an idiot. My buddy had a LeBaron turbo and it was fast, of coarse for the day!
I had a 2.2 in a Plymouth Sundance with over 100 thousand miles and never any problems. Driven easy I could get close to 40 miles per gallon on the interstate. Around town I never got close to that but it was so much fun to rip through the gears. My mother had a Shelby with the same engine that blew after 55 thousand miles but it was replaced at no cost because it was proven it was one of the cars Chrysler raced and then sold as new. After that it never had any problems either. More than once it was used to show its ass to Mustangs and Camaros of the time.
My brother put over 200k on a 2.2 Dodge Caravan he bought new, with just regular maintenance. My other brother was very satisfied with a rare Daytona Shelby 2.2 VNT turbo he had bought new and kept 10 years. Both cars still ran very well when traded in. Chrysler did sell a problematic 4 cylinder for a while, which I believe was Japanese. Those versions are the ones that left a blue smoke cloud leaving a traffic light.
@@johnmcmullen456 yea we ran the crap out of a 86 Daytona Turbo Z 2.2 litre in our younger days before we knew better. That engine still ran like a champ but the casing was cracked wide open on the 5spd transmission after power shifting the snot out of it.😳
Good I’m not alone in disagreeing, we had a Plymouth K with the 2.5l (same engine) and it’s not been a problem, I had to replace the head but that was because the car ran out of water and my dad figured that it was only 10 more miles in socal city traffic in summer so it should make it home easy… like said I replaced the head but no issues at all in fact the compressions were very high even around 90k. No smoke, no problems, bad NVH but was typical of all cars from this era.
@@johnmcmullen456 I know that the 2.2l was designed by the same engineer that designed the slant 6, I think they knew how to make a long lasting engine.
It wasn't the engine itself that was bad, it was GM cost cutting. GM trying to save money didn't give the Vega a coolant catch tank so if the car got hot the coolant would leak out and leave the coolant level low
@@lm7bird680 No, the engine itself was very bad. I was a tech at a Chevy dealership from 1971-77, worked on thousands of them and even owned two of them (because I could get them dirt cheap and keep them running for a while). Believe me, the radiator overflow tank was only the first, and not even the worst, of the Vega engine's problems. There's a reason that engine was never used in anything else after the Vega was discontinued. Even the Pontiac versions that remained in production for a couple of years used a different engine.
@@fresatx The 2.6 was the Mitsubishi design. The 2.2/2.5 design is similar to the VW 1.7 that it replaced. Chrysler didn't do extensive design on the 2.2, it is a conservative motor. I believe they were built in Trenton NJ.
@@timothykeith1367 I stand corrected. I looked it up it was the Mitsubishi V6 3.0 they put in the old Caravan I was thinking of. The bodies rusted into dust in a few years or the transmission would self destruct.. but the engines were great.
I liked my 1976 Vega. Used to drive it at around 103 mph between San Diego and Los Angeles in the 80's. The traction bar holding the rear end would crack though.
1:20. Bull shit! The only thing that kills a 2.2 is some idiot running it out of oil. In 2003 I bought one that had that fate. I overhauled it in the driveway and 166,000 miles later it runs just fine. I change the oil every 3,000 miles and it does not burn oil and it runs smooth and quiet.
What about including the early Cadillac Northstar engines. They were almost certain to blow head gaskets before 100,000 miles, burned through their 8 quarts of oil at a rate of one quart per thousand miles, and had their starter motors buried under the intake manifold necessitating high cost for what normally was a simple repair.
@@Nekzus i seem to remember that it was related to the head bolts, but I'm not sure exactly what. Whatever the cause, every Northstar died inside of 4 or 5 years, some in less than a year.
The 2.2 engine bad? B.S. A friend of mine had a 2.5 which lasted for 280,000 miles....before the car fell apart. I inherited my Dad's 2.2 turbo Lebaron....he changed the timing belt, serviced it regularly and is went over 200 K.
It wasn't bad. It had an easy fix. The head bolts were too short which caused them to loosen and cause coolant leaks. It was later fixed and now mechanics put longer bolts in them. The Northstars (if fixed) average 300K miles. The Ford Tritons on the other hand are the worst engines to ever come out of the U.S.
Volkswagon's 2.0 TSI,should be there,my 2012 Seat Leon FR,cost me £3000 in 2 years,a bomb in an engine bay,my luck changed,when I went Hondoo,SMA joke.
@@sachsgs2509 There isn't a 5 cylinder engine in the Trail Blazer. The Trail Blazer had a Atlas 4.2 inline 6 and is most reliable engines ever built. That's why they're referred to as the Ameri-Barra.
Putting the 2.2 Chrysler on this list is a mistake. They were almost bulletproof. I put over half a million km on mine (88" FI Horizon) in 5 years. Syn oil and air filter changes and that was it. I think I only changed the plugs in it twice. It was fairly peppy too, but the 5 speed helped with that. My uncle had a couple of really high mileage 2.2 Kcars also. Seems the rest of the car would fall apart before the 2.2 did. My dad had a 90' VNT Turbo Shelby Daytona and never had any issues with that 2.2 either.
@@johnwayne7715 Ubet. Mine never even smoked at half million km. The only issue it had was about once a year the throttle position sensor would crap out. Car got rear ended when i was sitting at a red light and written off.
2.2 chrysler was a fantastic engine. I had 206,000 miles on my Omni when I sold it . Compression was between 136 and 140 ft/lbs on all cylinders and burned NO oil. I would happily buy another. Late model 3.6 GM and 5.4 Ford Triton are trash.
I completely agree. Why the 3 valve 5.4 Ford wasn't on the list along with the ABYSMAL from General Motors shows that whoever compiled this list isn't associated with cars. Putting the obscure ww2 sheet metal engine is laughable. How many people could possibly know about that engine?
I had one of those Olds diesels in a company truck. It was gutless, any paperboy on a bike, with 2 full paper sacks could out accelerate it. It stank(like all diesels), made a shitload of noise. Form the day I got it I complained it had a miss, which was ignored, cause 'I didn't understand diesels'. After about 3 yrs it was decided by a mechanic that it had a miss and it had wrecked the engine, though I hadn't noticed anything different. When I got the truck back after a new engine was installed, I asked the mechanic how it was running. He said fine except for a miss at higher speeds. A couple of years later, I heard the sound of a Connecting Rod going south, I drove it a couple more weeks, till one morning, when it was really banging when I started it, I left it running and went and told a mechanic it was making a ticking sound. As he returned to the truck with me, it could be heard banging about 150 ft away. He was, TURN IT OFF, TURN IT OFF!. I never saw that truck again, except to move all my stuff to another truck. Good Riddance
Haha like 1 out of 1000 of em actually ran ok , as far as hitting on all cylinders. Other than that , yep you said it they were trash and made everyone think diesels were trash. Haha if a diesel has a miss , it's got issues for sure. And then on the other side of the coin the VW idi diesel ran forever and I'm a big fan of those.
@@MrTheHillfolk I can't handle the soot from any diesel, If one is within 2 blocks I can't breathe, and cough till I puke, and then continue coughing. The very fine soot gets deep in my lungs and my body is trying to get rid of it. I would like to see diesels banned except for large industrial engines, and semi trucks, with strictly controlled and regularly inspected for emission/particulate compliance
Cause I find it difficult, if not next to impossibe to breathe when there is diesel exhaust in the air? Same goes for Tobacco smoke. Marijuana smoke doesn't do that to me, and that stuff is in the air everywhere, and I don't smoke it. I did a bit in the 1970s and 80s but haven't even looked at since 2013.
They are usually pretty good actually. I'm guessing early 2.2's had these problems. Later on they made turbo versions and those are desirable. The 2.7 was another were the earlier versions sucked but the later ones with the corrected issues ran for quite a long time. All the later ones are all clean and used upgraded water pumps. Could have been a very good motor with few tweaks to the design, 6 bolt mains made it a very strong bottom end.
@@dalethelander3781 It's on the internet must be true!!! 90% of sludge build up is not changing the oil often enough. That would be user error not engine design, rest of the "issues" is minimal. Fun fact: Current Mopar engines have the same issues IF not maintained correctly. The 5.7 hemi has issues where the sludge build up causes the lifters to starve for oil and then turn (they are rollers) which takes out the cam and puts metal all up in your hemi..... All from not doing oil changes
The 2.2 was a good little engine. Head gaskets and timing belts were the major issues. But back then losing a timing belt dident mean you blew your engine.
@SpRiNgCoMa4372 0_0 Probably timing belt failure. The timing belts needed more frequent replacement than what we are used to now. Most drivers then had experience with cars with timing chains that tended to last the life of the motor.
I worked through the late 80s to current day as a professional auto mechanic and shop owner. I will say the Chrysler 2.2 / 2.5 l engines Rock solid engine. Top to bottom. Sure they had head gasket issues and some cracked cylinder heads from people running them hot. This can occur on any engine. The k car was a very simple easy to repair automobile. That would easily clock 200k on the odometer. Bad engines caddy's ht4100 or 4.1 digital fuel injection same as the later 4.5 and 4.9 engines. Head gasket issues cam and lifter issue crank and rod bearing issues and the bolts would strip out of the aluminum block any time you tried to repair it's many issues. Then caddy's 4.6 Northstar. Look at it wrong in the driveway and the head gasket would pop. So bad that gm told you to put caddy pills (Delco stop leak) in it's coolant. Then the oil leaks and the starter under the intake manifold.
I had that 2.2 Chrysler engine in a new ‘86 Dodge Lancer. Of all of the things that broke or went wrong with that car, that engine wasn’t one of them. Yes, it was noisy and 0-60 was like an hour, but it soldiered on well through 100k. Oil was changed regularly, filters changed, coolant flushed and replaced, that probably contributed to its long life but that’s expected maintenance. On the other hand, wheel bearings failed, trim fell off, even an inaccurate speedometer plagued that heap. Based on my experience, that engine was not as you describe.
Everyone told me my 2.4L turbo Chrysler engine was crap but I donated the car to the local children's hospital with 275,000 miles on it. Last update I received, the hospital put another 50,000 miles on it. This is my second Chrysler after buying Japanese for years. I found both Chryslers to be bulletproof.
I disagree concerning the K - car engine. I remember many going up to 300k. GM produced many junk engines for a while. Chrysler engines went through a bad time as well. I drove mostly Ford vehicles including the Maverick with the straight 6 that could easily go beyond 300k with no issues. Generally the body's rotted out before the engine gave up.
Correct. Some people in the know got some great deals then made the repairs. Same deal on the 1978 Chrysler 'Lean Burn' 400, it needed a different distributor and a rejetted carb [which was sealed, requiring a rebuild]. The Mopar 2.2 was decent if you changed oil every 3k miles, it just couldn't handle gross neglect. I'm pushing 70 and have wrenched quite a few motors but I've never seen a Crosley Cobra!
The 350 Olds diesel was NOT a converted gas engine. The 350 small smallblock and the 350 diesel are completely different. The main reason for its reputation was the high compression ratio to improve throttle response in a non-turbo diesel, the fact that there are only 4 head bolts per cylinder (most diesels have 6) resulting in head gasket failures and that there were almost no mechanics at the dealers that knew anything about maintenance on diesel engines. Putting head studs in goes a very long way to improve reliability, and solves the same issue the 6.0 powerstroke is know for (head gasket failures due to only 4 bolts per cylinder).
The 2.2 Chrysler is one of the best engines ever made. They had forged cranks rods and pistons and make great little performance engines. I know of several guys running these well into the 9’s in the 1/4 with stock internals
301 was fine, it was slow but very reliable. I had a 1979 Regal with 301 and it was a joy to drive. Transmission crapped out at 125,000 by the engine was going strong.
The 97-08 Ford 4.6L, 5.4L, 6.8L Tritons should have been #1. No matter if they were the 2V, 3V or 4V they all spit sparkplugs after their first tune-ups and they were just overall garbage. Oh and don't forget the 6.0L Power Strokes.
As with other comments. The 2.2 should not be near this list. This was an economy engine developed by the same gentleman who made the Slant 6. Aside from timing belt maintenance and headgasket issues with high boost, they are bulletproof. The turbo was an afterthought, and gave v8's a run for their money back in the 80's.
I’m surprised the 1995 Ford Taurus engine didn’t get included as the worst engine. I’ve seen videos of some people revving the engines so hard they exploded. Literally. The pistons would collide into each other right after fifty five hundred miles.
The Chrysler 2.7 letire had inadequate oil return which caused premature engine failure if the engine oil wasn't kept clean with regular oil and filter .
The Ford 5.4 3 valve v8 has similar issues, it probably should have been on this list. The 3-valve can live when exceptional maintenance is followed - which often isn't the case.
@@chikechovis2499 Which 318? There were 2. A big clunky one called the Polyspherical, and then the smaller 318, both were in production at the same time for a while. We had a poly, and the damn thing never did right correctly
@@kenrobinson1099 And they all had oiling problems that needd to be addressed before they could be reliable if hopped up. Chevy SB and BB were almost bulletproof when it came to the blocks and oil system. As for longevity. Lets see, the SB Chevey was introduced in 1955, and I know was still being built in well into the 2000s. It may not have been used in cars/truck after 2003, but it remained/remains as an engine used in Marine Applications. So 50 yrs for sure. I know of no Ford, Chrysler engine that lasted that long. Don't start saying hemi, as the hemi what came along 15 yrs or so ago, is nothing like the one in the 50s and 60s.
2.7 liter is a high maintenance engine, if you use full synthetic oil and change it every 3000-4000 miles and change the water pump and timing chain every 70.000-80,000 miles you can avoid a lot of issues. Have a 2004 Dodge Stratus SXT with 157,000 and never had an issues owner needs to be proactive not reactive with this engine.
Which kind of proves the point of why it's on the list. There are so very many engines out there that you can just perform the factory maintenance on and they will be just fine, you don't have to go to such extremes. I have a 93 Miata 1.6L with 197,000 miles on it, still going strong, required maintenance only performed on it.
I had a 2000 camry with the 2.2 L four, the only thing I did to it, other than regular maintenance, changed the oil every 5000 miles,was a timing belt and a catalytic converter.i had that car for 10 years.had 258,000 miles on it when I sold it.still ran like a dream.
With this engine you should check the coolant level at least once a week and find out why the coolant is low immediately - the coolant level should remain constant. The same attention is needed for many BMW engines that have plastic cooling system parts that leak. Check the coolant frequently, get it fixed immediately and they will live a long life. Actually, with most vehicles you should check the oil, transmission and coolant levels on a weekly basis. That's partly why some Toyotas make 450,000 miles.
I ran a LOT of Chizzler 2.2s in my late teens/early 20s. You'd go a week with fluid levels fine (you always checked fluids every morning. LOL). Next morning you're down a quart, morning after you're down antifreeze. Fluids would disappear and be fire for a week or two, then the magic trick happens. The neatest trick it suddenly dying while driving. You'd get an obvious misfire and car would die. Secret? Carry a screwdriver and a spare ignition rotor with you. The rotors would crack and spin on the shaft, obviously making it out of time. I had several in the trunk for spares.
This dude obviously lived a sheltered life. How can you leave out the GM Northstar line of engines? The GM 3100 engine, Chrysler 2.4, Ford 6.0 Diesel, All these engines when properly maintained still had major issues from the factory.
The Olds diesel was a interesting car that got alot of attention from gear heads, either laughs or WTFs. Usually the people that have them won't sell them, believe me, I've tried lol
I woulden mind having one of those engines in a el comino getting 45 mi to the gallon sounde pretty good out of a v8 .we drove a big old caddy to fla with 4 grown ups and luggage . Not at 55 mi i might add.
What you describe about the 2.2L Chrysler engine sounds a-lot like the 2.6L Mitsubishi engine used as an upgrade in power to the early carbureted 2.2L engines. Experienced none of this with 2.2’s. Besides anything carbureted was fair game before fuel injection.
Those 2.6L made so shitty engines always had starting and fuel problems. They weren’t an upgrade to the Chrysler 2.2, they were window sticker padding for sales people
Any Chrysler motor that ends with .7 is typically garbage, but the 2.7 Chrysler V6 is the first engine that came to my mind. I changed the internal water pump along with replacing the timing chain with new guides for a woman, and I’ll never do one again. I went the extra mile and cleaned, repaired, and made sure everything I took off was to spec and in good working order before putting it back together. The motor ran a little better, but overall still had the same problems. The 2.7 takes the #1 spot for me. It’s under powered for the vehicles they were put in, and way too fragile with over complicated workings.
Could add a few more to this list. I’ve owned a few gems. Every 3.0 Mitsubishi engine I had in my dodge mini vans smoked like crazy. We called it the mosquito killer. Had a 4.1 Buick V6 which was garbage. The 305 V8 I had in my mid 70’s nova was garbage. I could go on.
My mom had a 1978 Caprice with a 305 V8 2bbl carb. It was completely gutless. You had to get a run going before trying to pass anyone. The odd thing was that it had a 10-bolt posi rearend. Her next Caprice had an Olds 307 V8 4bbl. That was a beast by comparison.
The 5.7 Olds diesel can be made to be reliable. You can find a forum on these engines. With the upgrades the motor would still be low performance, but they can be built to last. They get great fuel economy. One of the upgrades is head bolts from John Deere. Most of the fixes are reasonable and not expensive, but makes one wonder why GM didn't address these concerns during the testing and pilot phase. The motors also need clean fuel containing no water and frequent oil changes. It didn't help that dealer mechanics were not skilled with diesels. GM owners just wanted to get in and drive - like they had with the gasoline v8s, they usually didn't maintain them correctly and dealers didn't stress that aspect either, particularly when GM began paying the dealers to swap gasoline motors. In this era, diesel ownership was almost like a trucker doing a pre-trip inspection. The expensive Mercedes sedans had better overall design, but GM customers weren't paying a premium and weren't fully informed of the risks.
Had 145k on my old diesel rabbit before the timing belt was changed. Only 100k over recommended change interval. The Germans had the diesel thing done right in the 80s, or at least alot better then the domestic gm trash.
Looking back one of two things happened: either GM was cursed or It was trying until it succeeded to commit suicide. They went out of their way to make junk or untested and usually unappealing products at the time while going out of their way to piss of their customers and even make them feel stupid. The UAWs greed never helped but it was absolutely nothing compared to the decisions made by management. To top it off after they did all these things, when they finally would get all the bugs worked out of a design resulting a solid product they would cancel it. I could roll dice to make corporate choices and do better then GM management did in the late 70s through early 2000s.
I give Cadillac credit for attempting cylinder deactivation. As this gas saving feature is now standard on many vehicles they had the right idea. They just didn’t have the technology to pull it off back then.
The Chrysler 2.2L was the one they put in the early Caravans. Cast iron block, around 100hp. They were weak but lasted a long time, sipped gas and ran well. Certainly not the worst.
As far as the 2.7, mabe it was just not as forgiving as other engines because of owners neglect. I have close to 170 thousand on mine. Oil changes, plugs and 6 new coils, that's it. Opps, for got 2 new oxygen sensors.
The majority of 2.7s were time bombs. Even with stringent maintenance, 9/10 of em would fail around 95-105k. There's a reason why you don't see those M-body cars on the road anymore, and if you do, they're likely 3.2L cars.
I'm heavily involved in car clubs, and have never heard of any serious issues with the Chrysler 2.2L engine. As for the V8-6-4, it was a cylinder deactivation feature added in 1981 to the smallest (6.0L) version of the excellent Cadillac big block V8. The available computing power of the time proved insufficient for consistently smooth operation. Fortunately the system could be easily disabled, leaving you with very solid conventional V8. So, an engineering embarrassment to be sure, but with an easy fix and definitely not worthy of this list.
My wife and I bought a brand new Daytona with the 2.2 engine. At 130000 miles had to replace the head gasket with new head bolts. At just over 200,000 miles I donated the Daytona to my young cousin so she could go to college.
@@alex1949 they actually have made giant leaps and strides with there engines. I've seen them with electric fans, bigger radiators, superchargers, fuel injection, and distributor less ignitions. Too bad none of this was available to my dad in 1980's Wisconsin when he restored his.
The Triumph 3.0L V8 is known world wide fordd it's unreliability but this guy didn't even mention the Ford 351 Modifieds or the 4.6L/5.4L/6.8L Tritons or the 6.0L Power Strokes. Those engines are the worst to ever come out of the U.S.
Excuse me? Your #4 choice, the Cadillac V8-6-4 DOESEN'T even belong on your list. This 6.0L V8, with digital throttle body fuel injection, was one of the best engines Cadillac ever made! As a Cadillac mechanic, we had very few of these engines that ever had a problem nor required warranty repairs. Even later, working in the independent garage trade, the only problems I or others really ever saw was the belt-driven vacuum pump failing after many years of service. Also, these engines and the traditional Cadillac engines since late-1964 were always backed by the TH 400 automatic transmission. Because they were under-stressed, they lasted forever and very seldom failed. The #1 failure was that after many years of service, if properly service atleast every 30K miles, was that the seals dried up causing external leaks. With an external re-seal, without a complete tear-down, the transmission remained leak-free for many years. The 6.0L, non-modulated V8 and TH 400 transmission was used in commercial chassis Fleetwoods through the 1984 model year. Because, as a Cadillac Mechanic, personally witnessed how good the 6.0L V8-6-4 was, after I began seeing all the failures of the new HT4100 Cadillac V8, off the bat, I got my parents one of the remaining 1981's. I inherited that Cadillac in 2018 when my mother passed and still have it. With over 100K miles, the engine still runs like new and doesn't leak a drop of anything. The car still drives like new, also. The only problems, were a new waterpump around 80K miles and having to rebuild the alternator twice. The alternator is original to the car. I changed the spark plugs, ignition wires, distributor cap & rotor at around 50K miles(and everything still looked good and I hesitated to replace them then). The only problem that owners complained about with the V8-6-4 was that it vibrated in the 6 cyl. mode. Many would disconnect the 3rd gear sensor, to disable the modulated displacement function, but the better fix was to jumper the cylinder de-activation solenoids so that it only had an 4 or 8 cylinder mode. If cylinder modulation was so bad, then why is it still being used in current V8's in many cars and trucks? They only use the 4 and 8 cylinder modes. Oh, and eventhough multi-port fuel injection made it much easier, if you want to talk about failures, they are known to burn valves and also to have camshaft failures. I've also seen that personally. Probably the worst engine ever made? That would be the Oldsmobile diesel. From hands-on personal experience, the Cadillac HT series of V8, starting with the HT4100. This would be closely followed by the Cadillac Northstar V8, which had problems with running hot, pulling head studs and oil leaks from the valve covers and the separation between the cylinder block and crankcase. The stud and crankcase leaks required pulling the engine. Where do I go if I needs obsolete spare parts? I go to auto dismantling yards and get them mostly from 1982 to 1985 full-size "D" chassis Cadillacs that used the HT4100, HT4500 and Olds diesels. Cadillac got smart and switched to Oldsmobile 5L V8's and eventually 5.7L LT-1 Chevy V8's. Oh, and for the matter of engines slugging up, that was due to poor maintenance. Of the engines you've pointed out for that problem, I still see some on the road which are original and have never been apart or replaced, with over 100K miles on them or more. Use an ash-free top quality oil and change it every 3K miles is the trick(and it's no trick at all, it's common sense).
Dont forget the Vega engine. Aluminum pistons and block. No liners. Silicon in aluminum block to reduce friction which didnt last and caused oil burning.
Interesting that the top 5 worst engines were all made in America 🤣. In fact if you allowed that there is a whole world outside the US and other countries make engines as well, there might have been some other engines in your top 5.
The Oldsmobile 350 diesel was in my opinion, the biggest piece of 💩💩engine ever made. Just goes to show, you can’t re-engineer a gas engine into diesel. Huge failure.
I had the 2.7 in my Sebring. I had issues with my sending unit and I constantly had an oil light come on. I had the car for 3 years and I put many KMS on it. My mechanic changed the oil but when he changed the oil filter he didn't check the old oil filter and left the old gasket up in the engine and put the new oil filter on top of it ! They took responsibility and got me a trade in for market value. I went with a Grand Prix and never looked back. It was a good car but I was just about to have issues with it.
Yeah I have my Intrepid still. It has it's problems but if you correct them it's actually a very good car. I normally don't give a shit about Chrysler but it would have been a great car if they just didn't cheap out on it.
Very interesting video the caddy that you put on looked like my uncle Tony's '81 or '82 Fleetwood brougham but I'm not sure on what engine it had under the hood but all I remember it was a awesome car and I was like 10-11 at the time Even my dad wanted one but we used it takes family trips especially across the border to Buffalo NY
The Chrysler 2.2 was actually known to be a good reliable engine that was cheap to repair. Some people experienced head gasket issues but a lot of that was due to bad mechanics. Also they had turbo I, II, III, and IV engines. Ranging from 146 to 224HP and were easily modded to over 400 and even 500HP. All forged internals etc. If you want some other notorious engines I’d suggest the Cadillac 4.5 liter from the late 80’s. Blew headgaskets like crazy. The olds/Buick 307 from the early 80’s. And maybe the worst from a performance/reliability standpoint, the Pontiac turbo 301. The idea of an American V8 turbocharged was way ahead of its time, but didn’t deliver in any way
Actually the Oldsmobile diesel was a good engine in the later years. Problem was people didn’t know how to maintain them. Like draining the water from the separator and the engine is actually not the same internally as the regular Oldsmobile 350 either. They had different mains and caps to make them stronger
The Olds RWD 4.3 litre diesel V6 was a little better than the 5.7 diesel V8, but still had issues with the injection pump and starter motors. There were only about a thousand of them built, so most people don't know about them or don't remember them.
@@michaelbenardo5695 it seemed to be a pretty good engine other than the starter motors only lasted about 20,000 miles each. And the injector pump. At 130,000 miles the starter went bad again and that's when I said "enough.". The rest of the car was great.
The Chrysler 2.2 was a damn fine engine. The problem was a poorly designed distributor with a plastic rotor that would separate from the metal Hall Effect vanes causing the timing to bounce around. Swap it out with an aftermarket part (10 minute job) and it would run forever.
Crosley converted over to cast iron block version of the same 44 cu inch ohc engine which was rugged and dependable. A Crosley Hotshot won the best index of performance in 750 cc class at Lemans
The 2.2? Ohhhkaaay The Olds diesel needed a water separator instead of just a idiot light. Idiots kept driving til it got water in the cylinder. That's operator error, not bad engineering.
I owned several Cadillacs from the 1980s and although I had a few minor problems with my 81 eldorado 6.0L 8-6-4, I would have to say the worst one was the 4.1L HT-4100. Those things went through head gaskets like underwear!
My grandpa bought one of those Oldsmobile diesel cars brand new it ran for many years. But the funniest thing I remember was the first time my dad and I rode it in it, he told my grandpa " Gee Dad This car sounds like shit" Grandpa kinda frowned and said well it's diesel ya know. Shit was hilarious to me.
Yeah the things listed under the Chrysler 2.2 were actually issues in the Mitsubishi 2.6. I’ve never heard of those problems with the Chrysler 2.2/2.5 besides the 2.2 being a bit underpowered in some N/A applications. Other than that, they were bullet proof. They were also loosely based on the bullet proof /6. So Imma call 🧢. ALSO, the early 2.7v6 were bad, the later ones, post 2002 were mostly unproblematic. Many Intrepids and 300/Chargers got up to 200-300k miles on them.
Yeah, only an idiot would think the 2.2 Chrysler was a bad engine. They were slow and underpowered like most engines of that era -- but the engine was super reliable because it was designed by the same engineer as the Slant 6.
It seems like this person is using modern 4 cyl and v6s to compare it.
it actually had great performance compared to it's contemporaries. add a turbo, and it's got more hp than a chevy 350 (or a chrysler 318) at the time! a man by the name of joe mosler took a turbo 3 2.2l engine, and blew the doors of a 1989 corvette!
Now, was the base trim 2.2L Plymouth reliant slow? yeah, but its a rocket compared to a chevy celebrity, or a ford tempo (growing up, my parents had all 3 such cars at one point.)
From a maintenance standpoint, far too many people ran these things hot, which is not the end of the world for your 1977 dodge pickup with the cast iron 318, but could be catastrophic for one of these aluminum headed engines
The Chrysler 2.2 is on your list but the Chevy Vega isn't? You have no idea what you are talking about.
That what I thought and don't forget the Ford 2.3L with plastic timing gears.
FACT!
@@danw6014 what ford are you talking about with plastic timing gears? both the 2.3 lima and 2.3 dura tec both had all steel gears
Agree. I had a 2.2 in a fairly optionless 81 K car - it was fine for what it was. A cheap, economical box that held 6 adults. I had a Honda Prelude (91) that burned more oil than that 2.2 Chrysler. Not that I am a Mopar fan, but that engine certainly does not belong on this list. BTW, I raced a Pontiac Firebird with a 3.8L V6 and won with that 2.2 - not that it’s a big deal, just that is was not that underpowered and sluggish in it’s day.
@@evananderson3350 there has never been a Ford engine with plastic timing gears that I can recall. He may be talking about some of their fwd applications of the time that had the cam gears *pressed on* which would shift and cause the valves to flirt with the pistons in a salacious, and pernicious manner.
I'm still driving a 1989 Sundance with a 2.5, the enlarged version of the 2.2. Strong as an ox at 160,000 miles, and a long, long way from any sensible Worst Engines list.
The TBI era 2.2/2.5 are pretty trouble free. You can swap the Holley carb for a Webber in the original 2.2 to fix the issue with the feedback carbs. The noise is partly due to the lack of sound deadening in K cars and L bodies. The 2.5 has balance shafts that make the long stroke motor smoother. Head gaskets have improved since then.
People who maintain there cars usually have good luck. I've had customers ask me what kind of car should I buy. I always say what do you like. You can get a good or bad car no matter who built it .
I inherited my Dad's 1985 Omni 2.2 with automatic. The air conditioning was crap, it was plagued with evil spirits in the electrical system, and as often as not I had to crawl in through the hatchback because the door locks would snap down when I closed the door and lock cylinder would seize about the time the key was halfway in. It rusted, it leaked, the wheel bearings went out, the CV joints gave out within a thousand miles after the end of the warranty. The car was about as lousy as a car could be, but the engine and transmission were trouble-free.
@woolhat1 For all its faults, though, it was a well-designed car with a lot more room than one would have expected at that time, and it was quite a sight with a load of bicycles (including a Santana tandem) on the roof rack, the tandem's rear wheel out over the hood. That design deserved better quality control than Chrysler had at the time.
I don't recall the car being fun to drive, but I do remember it spinning out on an Interstate on-ramp when I lifted my foot off the throttle in a rain storm (had new Continentals on it at the time), and I remember when it was the only car we had that wasn't sealed shut in the blizzard of '93 when I had to go out to the laundromat and the pharmacy, and it wouldn't drive into the wind, only downwind or cross-wind. Not enough traction and power to drive upwind.
I had a 1992 LeBaron sedan with the 2.5 and it was a fairly bulletproof engine. I had the car from 2010 to 2015. The only issues I had were age related, not design related.
Triumph Stag’s V8 was one of the worst engines ever built over here. What made it even more unforgivable was, that as part of British Leland, Triumph had free access to the superb ex-Buick Rover 3500 V8.
Yup. That engine sounds excellent though. I worked in a shop and a customer had a all original with the original v8 still in it. I always wanted to step on it to see how it performed but was always afraid to.
@@mfslyphantom8811 Yes, it sounds terrific.
Casting sand left in the heads from new. British Leylands very bad inspections.
Love the t-stag. Gorgeous car. TR-8 too.
Should point out that British Leyland also had two superb Daimler Hemi V8s via Jaguar. However, timing was the issue as development of the Triumph V8 started in 1964 when Triumph and Rover were still independent competitors. By the time they became Leyland bedfellows Triumph had put a ton of cash and development time into the project and became too expensive to cancel it in favour of the Rover V8. The Stag was meant to go on sale in '68 but Triumph enlarged the capacity of the V8 from 2.5 to 3 litres (to increase power) which meant launch date was now 1970. If they scrapped the engine and went with Rover V8 then the launch would have been further delayed until 1971, this was deemed unacceptable as the Stag V8 was also meant for the Triumph 2000 saloon (facelift relaunch to replace the 2.5 PI) and the company needed a lengthy build run of engines to meet capacity demand. In the end the Triumph V8 saloon was scrapped due to the fuel crisis and as it turned out Rover just didn't have the capacity to produce V8s for Triumph as well as their own P5b, P6 and Range Rovers.
The 8-6-4 was a bulletproof caddy big block; the weakness was all the electronic bullshit they threw on it. If you disabled the deactivation, it ran great.
Exactly, there was nothing wrong with the Caddy 368 it was an extremely reliable engine. You do not condemn an engine due to crappy ancillary systems that can be removed or deactivated. The engine that should be on the list instead of the 368 is the Caddy HT4100. Now there is a steaming pile. It is easily one of the worst engines ever made by anybody ever. Also instead of the 2.2L Chrysler which was not great engine but was not terrible, the Triumph V8 on the other hand... is a far worse power plant by any measurable metric.
On Chrysler 2.2 liter the ones I drove, 83+ were reliable and did not burn oil unless you never followed the mfg maintenence requirements. Now the Ford 1.6 L did go through head gaskets as did all Mitsubishi engines.
And it was replaced with the miserable HT 4100 which was replaced with the even worse Northstar. Cadillac lost their loyal customers and was fatally wounded. Never recovered.
@@jamesdesmidt447 Most of my small family and friends have driven Mitsubishi's from 1978 onwards. We had oil consumption issues in a 1983 Galant, but up to this day, all others were very reliable and none of them needed a head gasket in their lifetime (we tend to drive them until around 150.000 miles).
@@jamesdesmidt447
Especially the Mitsubishi 3.0.
The only thing wrong without the 2.2 Chrysler was poor maintenance and operator failure. People shut them down hot and the turbo would over heat the oil in the bearing. They where great engines that could give a 5.0 a good run.
I owned several back in the 80"s and 90's. The naturally aspirated ones were underpowered, but reliable. I had no major problems with them.
I don’t agree with this engine on the list. With proper maintenance you can get high mileage.
I owned several NA 2.2s and they were extremely reliable.
One good thing about these engines, you were able to pull the oil pans off to replace the oil pumps. I got two of these cars real cheap that knocked on start up. I changed the oil pump and that stopped. The other thing I really liked about these engines was the easy way to change the water pumps. I put several hundred thousand miles on these puppies.
I couldn't kill my turbo 2.2
Surprised that the Vega’s engine didn’t make it. Due to a non sleeved aluminum block it started to burn oil at 20K.
My friend had one. Fill the oil and check the gas.
GM was just learning about Silica infused engine blocks, unfortunately the public was part of the endurance testing. They later utilized the process quite successfully in other engines. Vegas were great cars to take on camping trips, as they excelled at Mosquito Control
@@pjimmbojimmbo1990 And let’s not forget that the Vega was named Car and Driver’s car of the year three years straight. It’s cheaper to bribe a magazine than it is to build a good car.
@@boataxe4605
Very few Automotive Magazines were sources of unbiased reviews. They made money from advertising, not magazine sales. Same was true of the Hot Rodding mags. Every Intake Manifold ever reviewed was portrayed to make an engine more powerful, idle better, get better economy, etc. etc. Didn't matter if the intake was designed for an rpm range of 3000 - 7000, it would make your grocery getting into a top fuel dragster even with a 2bbl carb and single exhaust with muffler and resonator
My brother drove one that went through 3 liters a week of straight 50 weight oil.
I’m not a Mopar guy, but I really disagree with with the 2.2 on the list. They weren’t quite up to par with Japanese competition at the time but were very solid and would run a long time if you treated them right.
I agree, Had well over 200k on my Horizon when I sold it. The only thing other than oil and plugs I ever had to do to the engine was a timing belt.
Maybe in the K-cars they were buzzy and underpowered, but I had a 1989 Plymouth Horizon (Dodge Omni) bought new that year, and had no issues with that powerplant at all. To be fair, I only kept the car up until about 75K miles, though.
They could handle big boost too. Forged internals from the factory. Many tuners used to throw big power at them.
I agree ,I think a lot of the trouble was using sub standard quality oil left in the engine to sludge up in a hard running 4 cylinder engine along with letting the anti freeze get too old also causing more over heating . .... ..
Really not a bad engine at all. I had one, timing belt went out at around 80,000 but it had non interference pistons. Other than that she ran real good and reliable for many years. Slow, especially with a/c running, but not a bad engine.
The 2.2 was a good engine.
Should not be on this list as there are many way worst engines like the 3.6 V6 from GM(well Opel).
@woolhat1 There is no cross member directly under the motor and the exhaust manifold is on the rear - makes for easy access.
The GM 3.6 had/has a weak set of Timing Chains. When combined with Direct Injection, which produces a very hard carbon, the oil would bget containinated rapidly, the added to it was the extended Oil Change intervals on cars that were speced to use synthetic oils, resulted in rapid wear on the chains and eventually out of time camshafts. GM ended up warrantying those engines for up to 10 yrs and almost 300,000 kms. My STS has one of those engines, and had to have the chains, replaced, and they were, supposedly. Other than that the only issue I have had with is one bad ignition coil, and a leaky thermostat oring that seals a pipe to the housing. Since you have to pull the engine to get at it, and it only loses about 2 liters per year, I am not going to change it. If the transmission falls out out, I will look at while on the hoist and see it if the housing is accessible. That engine was designed for use with a Transaxle, which would have place the Thermostat housing on drivers side by the strut tower, but this car being RWD, has the engine mounted normally, with the crankshaft running front to back, which jams the housing against firewall behind/under the front cowl. Who ever engineered that, needs to be given an attitude adjustment
@@pjimmbojimmbo1990 On paper the 3.6 looks like a good engine. These issues are driving manufacturers toward electrification. As I tell people, what is the chance that the Commodore 64 in the attic will still work, or the component stereo from the '70s with play music? Aging electrical parts have their own set of issues.
@@pjimmbojimmbo1990 My Impala with the 3.6L is turning ten in a couple of months and still runs smoothly with tons of power on the original timing chains. 198K miles and the only engine work I had to do was the purge solenoid and the water pump. Both very easy fixes. The key to longevity: 3K mile Synthetic oil changes, flush coolant every few years, change transmission fluid every other year. Never carbon cleaned the valves, no need to really, just take it out on a full throttle highway run. Awesome engine in my experience.
@@int53185
What year is your Impala? And does it have Fuel injection or Direct Fuel Injection That alone will determine whether or not you will have dirty intake valves and timing chain problems
The olds diesels were not converted 350 blocks.
That is a myth. The blocks and heads are completely different. The only thing the same was the displacment.
I have worked on a number of them. They were the same block as the 350 gasoline engine. The heads were different, the cam and lifters were different and the main bearings were different, but the basic block was the same. You could replace the vacuum pump with a distributor, change the heads and the intake manifold and you had a gasoline engine.
@@mikefrech1123 They may have appeared to be the same, but they are not. They were the DX blocks. Not the same as a 350 block. The cylinder walls and the webbing of the mains was thicker.
I know becuase back in the day racers used to look for these blocks and put the gas heads on them becuase the blocks were much much stronger than stock gasoline 350 blocks.
Perhaps but they were still a POS!
@@mikehunt2190 yes they were heavier castings. I believe Warren Johnson used those blocks to build NHRA pro stock engines out of in the early to mid 80s
You could see the casting marks that indicated the location of the gasoline engine distributor. Total garbage. People paid more for a Cadillac that had the diesel, then had to sell it for a lot less on the used market for the same car with the gas engine.
The Chrysler 2.2 was a very good durable motor. Whoever did this has no clue
I have had several and they were all junk. I' have a friend who has owned several K-cars that had the 2.2 and they were junk too. I always did maintenance and took care of my vehicles so that's not the cause.
I disagree with the Chrysler 2.2 ..I got 300k out mine then sold it still running fine and all I done was head gasket at 200k, never touched the bottom end. One of the best engines I've owned.
Yes I also must call bull 🐂 on your opinion of the 2.2 my build up of 2.2laser turbo ripped off 14.3 times .using all direct connection parts .many other 2.2 stories of high milage 2.2 L .early half shaft was an issue upon launch .
I had really good luck with several 2.2’s. They seemed to last forever and had no problems.
Yes I agree
Should have listed that mistubishi 2.5
My 93 Sundance has 234k on it and the body has rusted out around the engine. Runs fine uses about one quart every 3k.
mopar 2.2 turbo i four was reliable with normal maintenance schedules
This is completely incorrect information. The 2.2l Chrysler engine was AMAZING. Perhaps is was a little noisy when the mileage added up but we had 4 of them, 2 with over 300,000m and they still started in the coldest winter, never plugged in and were wonderfully reliable. Big mistake on that one, BIG.
Fiats too...
Absolutely agree, we had a few k cars as winter cars and they never quit! We want the heck out of them thru buffalo winters. The bodies always rotted away before the engine went. Yeah they rattled like heck but ran well. I don't agree it a tops worst engine....
Yup my Omni went over 300k and that was after I beefed up the power with better bigger carb and chip.
The engine itself was ok. They did have a problem with head gaskets going every 150,000 miles or so. After the first year or two of production the head bolt diameter was increased to 11mm which helped some. The worst part was the Holley electronically controlled carburetor. Fine when new, but sucked when it and the computer/vacuum was worn. The Holley was also prone to carburetor icing as well as vapor lock (a factory retrofit fix was made because vapor lock was so common) . The whole set-up was difficult to rebuild properly. A Weber carb kit that cost 1/2 that of a rebuilt Holley fixed all that.
@@NoName-tz5ji I think we had 4 or 5 reliants, I'd run my friends v6 cameros and eat alive the 4cyl mustangs. They actually had a heck of a top end for their day. Who ever put that video together is an idiot. My buddy had a LeBaron turbo and it was fast, of coarse for the day!
I had a 2.2 in a Plymouth Sundance with over 100 thousand miles and never any problems. Driven easy I could get close to 40 miles per gallon on the interstate. Around town I never got close to that but it was so much fun to rip through the gears. My mother had a Shelby with the same engine that blew after 55 thousand miles but it was replaced at no cost because it was proven it was one of the cars Chrysler raced and then sold as new. After that it never had any problems either. More than once it was used to show its ass to Mustangs and Camaros of the time.
My brother put over 200k on a 2.2 Dodge Caravan he bought new, with just regular maintenance. My other brother was very satisfied with a rare Daytona Shelby 2.2 VNT turbo he had bought new and kept 10 years. Both cars still ran very well when traded in. Chrysler did sell a problematic 4 cylinder for a while, which I believe was Japanese. Those versions are the ones that left a blue smoke cloud leaving a traffic light.
@@johnmcmullen456 yea we ran the crap out of a 86 Daytona Turbo Z 2.2 litre in our younger days before we knew better. That engine still ran like a champ but the casing was cracked wide open on the 5spd transmission after power shifting the snot out of it.😳
Good I’m not alone in disagreeing, we had a Plymouth K with the 2.5l (same engine) and it’s not been a problem, I had to replace the head but that was because the car ran out of water and my dad figured that it was only 10 more miles in socal city traffic in summer so it should make it home easy… like said I replaced the head but no issues at all in fact the compressions were very high even around 90k. No smoke, no problems, bad NVH but was typical of all cars from this era.
@@johnmcmullen456 I know that the 2.2l was designed by the same engineer that designed the slant 6, I think they knew how to make a long lasting engine.
When you discover Toyota your mind will blow.
Chryslers 2.7 makes everyone's list. Lol
I put 100,000 miles on one and still sold it running and driving. It did require timely synthetic oil changes to avoid the sludge.
@@beezertwelvewashingbeard8703 had one full synthetic oil and every 3000 mile change
i got mine almost hitting 160k without any problems, just use synthetic oil with a oil additive to prevent sludge
surely the GM 2.3L Vega aluminum block / iron head engine of 1971 was a lot worse than the Chrysler 2.2 OHC
It wasn't the engine itself that was bad, it was GM cost cutting. GM trying to save money didn't give the Vega a coolant catch tank so if the car got hot the coolant would leak out and leave the coolant level low
Second generation 3.8 liter Ford engine is not on the list?!?!
@@lm7bird680 The Vega engine could have been a world-class engine, but what GM decided to sell the public ultimately decides it's place in history.
@@lm7bird680 No, the engine itself was very bad. I was a tech at a Chevy dealership from 1971-77, worked on thousands of them and even owned two of them (because I could get them dirt cheap and keep them running for a while). Believe me, the radiator overflow tank was only the first, and not even the worst, of the Vega engine's problems. There's a reason that engine was never used in anything else after the Vega was discontinued. Even the Pontiac versions that remained in production for a couple of years used a different engine.
What a contest.
The Chrysler 2.2 was reliable and ran good
Yes... Mitsubishi built half of them and it was their design.
@@fresatx The 2.6 was the Mitsubishi design. The 2.2/2.5 design is similar to the VW 1.7 that it replaced. Chrysler didn't do extensive design on the 2.2, it is a conservative motor. I believe they were built in Trenton NJ.
@@timothykeith1367 I stand corrected. I looked it up it was the Mitsubishi V6 3.0 they put in the old Caravan I was thinking of. The bodies rusted into dust in a few years or the transmission would self destruct.. but the engines were great.
@@fresatx I had the Daytona Iroc 3.0. Heck of an engine. I sold it at 172,000 miles. Burned oil but ran like a top.... Fast car.
The Chevrolet Vega engines were THE worst engines ever made!
I knew this back in the day too that's why I dropped in a 350 small block.
Worked at a Chevy dealership from 1971-77, as a tech. I could not agree more with that statement.
Fill the oil and check the gas.
I bought a used Vega for $100 and I over payed.
I liked my 1976 Vega. Used to drive it at around 103 mph between San Diego and Los Angeles in the 80's. The traction bar holding the rear end would crack though.
1:20. Bull shit! The only thing that kills a 2.2 is some idiot running it out of oil. In 2003 I bought one that had that fate. I overhauled it in the driveway and 166,000 miles later it runs just fine. I change the oil every 3,000 miles and it does not burn oil and it runs smooth and quiet.
What about including the early Cadillac Northstar engines. They were almost certain to blow head gaskets before 100,000 miles, burned through their 8 quarts of oil at a rate of one quart per thousand miles, and had their starter motors buried under the intake manifold necessitating high cost for what normally was a simple repair.
I worked on a lot of those Northstar engines to the point where I refused to work on anymore of them. They were junk from day one.
All the north star were a blown head gasket waiting to happen
⁷
Was that the one where the threads for the cyljnder head bolts were too small?
@@Nekzus i seem to remember that it was related to the head bolts, but I'm not sure exactly what. Whatever the cause, every Northstar died inside of 4 or 5 years, some in less than a year.
The 8-6-4 could be removed and run like a normal engine.
The 2.2 engine bad? B.S. A friend of mine had a 2.5 which lasted for 280,000 miles....before the car fell apart. I inherited my Dad's 2.2 turbo Lebaron....he changed the timing belt, serviced it regularly and is went over 200 K.
I had a 2.2 turbo. Good engine
Exactly
I pushed my 2.2l turbo hard. I changed the oil good. The engine was all that was left of it when I was done with it. I speak highly of em
Yea somebody is on crack about the 2.2 being a dud. They were tuff little engines. Every one I ever had never let me walk.
The Cadillac engine that should be on this list is the HT4100.
Video: "These are the 5 worst engines ever made"
*Cadillac Northstar has entered the chat*
It wasn't bad. It had an easy fix. The head bolts were too short which caused them to loosen and cause coolant leaks. It was later fixed and now mechanics put longer bolts in them. The Northstars (if fixed) average 300K miles. The Ford Tritons on the other hand are the worst engines to ever come out of the U.S.
Volkswagon's 2.0 TSI,should be there,my 2012 Seat Leon FR,cost me £3000 in 2 years,a bomb in an engine bay,my luck changed,when I went Hondoo,SMA joke.
@@tskraj3190 we have two mine an my boys no problems yet mine is a 93 his is a 98,,,but we know about the head bolts,,,
@@tskraj3190 nope...the worst it's the 5 cyl in the trailblazers
@@sachsgs2509 There isn't a 5 cylinder engine in the Trail Blazer. The Trail Blazer had a Atlas 4.2 inline 6 and is most reliable engines ever built. That's why they're referred to as the Ameri-Barra.
Putting the 2.2 Chrysler on this list is a mistake. They were almost bulletproof. I put over half a million km on mine (88" FI Horizon) in 5 years. Syn oil and air filter changes and that was it.
I think I only changed the plugs in it twice. It was fairly peppy too, but the 5 speed helped with that. My uncle had a couple of really high mileage 2.2 Kcars also.
Seems the rest of the car would fall apart before the 2.2 did. My dad had a 90' VNT Turbo Shelby Daytona and never had any issues with that 2.2 either.
judgegixxer I agree my dad had 3 a Horizon, Reliant and a Caravel all were
Good running engines once the proper maintenance was done.
Agree, a guy I knew had 170k and it ran fine and my wife had one and it ran fine too.
@@johnwayne7715 Ubet. Mine never even smoked at half million km. The only issue it had was about once a year the throttle position sensor would crap out. Car got rear ended when i was sitting at a red light and written off.
Yup. Mine too - '87 Horizon 5-speed. Got more tickets in that car than any other.
My dad had a k car with the 2.2. Never had any problems with the engine. The rest of the car sucked.
2.2 chrysler was a fantastic engine. I had 206,000 miles on my Omni when I sold it . Compression was between 136 and 140 ft/lbs on all cylinders and burned NO oil. I would happily buy another. Late model 3.6 GM and 5.4 Ford Triton are trash.
I completely agree.
Why the 3 valve 5.4 Ford wasn't on the list along with the ABYSMAL from General Motors shows that whoever compiled this list isn't associated with cars.
Putting the obscure ww2 sheet metal engine is laughable.
How many people could possibly know about that engine?
The Ford 6.4 powerstroke diesel should also be on here
I had one of those Olds diesels in a company truck. It was gutless, any paperboy on a bike, with 2 full paper sacks could out accelerate it. It stank(like all diesels), made a shitload of noise. Form the day I got it I complained it had a miss, which was ignored, cause 'I didn't understand diesels'. After about 3 yrs it was decided by a mechanic that it had a miss and it had wrecked the engine, though I hadn't noticed anything different. When I got the truck back after a new engine was installed, I asked the mechanic how it was running. He said fine except for a miss at higher speeds. A couple of years later, I heard the sound of a Connecting Rod going south, I drove it a couple more weeks, till one morning, when it was really banging when I started it, I left it running and went and told a mechanic it was making a ticking sound. As he returned to the truck with me, it could be heard banging about 150 ft away. He was, TURN IT OFF, TURN IT OFF!. I never saw that truck again, except to move all my stuff to another truck. Good Riddance
Haha like 1 out of 1000 of em actually ran ok , as far as hitting on all cylinders.
Other than that , yep you said it they were trash and made everyone think diesels were trash.
Haha if a diesel has a miss , it's got issues for sure.
And then on the other side of the coin the VW idi diesel ran forever and I'm a big fan of those.
@@MrTheHillfolk
I can't handle the soot from any diesel, If one is within 2 blocks I can't breathe, and cough till I puke, and then continue coughing. The very fine soot gets deep in my lungs and my body is trying to get rid of it. I would like to see diesels banned except for large industrial engines, and semi trucks, with strictly controlled and regularly inspected for emission/particulate compliance
@@pjimmbojimmbo1990 what a loser. Get over yourself.
Cause I find it difficult, if not next to impossibe to breathe when there is diesel exhaust in the air? Same goes for Tobacco smoke. Marijuana smoke doesn't do that to me, and that stuff is in the air everywhere, and I don't smoke it. I did a bit in the 1970s and 80s but haven't even looked at since 2013.
Hope this doesn't come across as rude but wear a mask of some kind outside, keep your Windows rolled up when driving around trucks too👍
Don’t know where you got the idea the Chrysler 2.2 should be on the list. That’s at least a decent engine.
Did you read the reasons?
They are usually pretty good actually. I'm guessing early 2.2's had these problems. Later on they made turbo versions and those are desirable. The 2.7 was another were the earlier versions sucked but the later ones with the corrected issues ran for quite a long time. All the later ones are all clean and used upgraded water pumps. Could have been a very good motor with few tweaks to the design, 6 bolt mains made it a very strong bottom end.
@@dalethelander3781 It's on the internet must be true!!! 90% of sludge build up is not changing the oil often enough. That would be user error not engine design, rest of the "issues" is minimal. Fun fact: Current Mopar engines have the same issues IF not maintained correctly. The 5.7 hemi has issues where the sludge build up causes the lifters to starve for oil and then turn (they are rollers) which takes out the cam and puts metal all up in your hemi..... All from not doing oil changes
@@jekinneys Jus' sayin'. He makes it sound like the sludge problem is across-the-board.
The 2.2 was a good little engine.
Head gaskets and timing belts were the major issues.
But back then losing a timing belt dident mean you blew your engine.
I disagree about the K car engine . They ran forever
Absolutely....this is wrong info in here.
I literally tried to blow one up, Dodge shadow. I was holding it against the rev limiter. Wouldn't die. I gave up and the neighbor bought it.
@SpRiNgCoMa4372 0_0 Probably timing belt failure. The timing belts needed more frequent replacement than what we are used to now. Most drivers then had experience with cars with timing chains that tended to last the life of the motor.
I worked through the late 80s to current day as a professional auto mechanic and shop owner. I will say the Chrysler 2.2 / 2.5 l engines Rock solid engine. Top to bottom. Sure they had head gasket issues and some cracked cylinder heads from people running them hot. This can occur on any engine. The k car was a very simple easy to repair automobile. That would easily clock 200k on the odometer.
Bad engines caddy's ht4100 or 4.1 digital fuel injection same as the later 4.5 and 4.9 engines. Head gasket issues cam and lifter issue crank and rod bearing issues and the bolts would strip out of the aluminum block any time you tried to repair it's many issues.
Then caddy's 4.6 Northstar. Look at it wrong in the driveway and the head gasket would pop. So bad that gm told you to put caddy pills (Delco stop leak) in it's coolant. Then the oil leaks and the starter under the intake manifold.
I had that 2.2 Chrysler engine in a new ‘86 Dodge Lancer. Of all of the things that broke or went wrong with that car, that engine wasn’t one of them. Yes, it was noisy and 0-60 was like an hour, but it soldiered on well through 100k. Oil was changed regularly, filters changed, coolant flushed and replaced, that probably contributed to its long life but that’s expected maintenance. On the other hand, wheel bearings failed, trim fell off, even an inaccurate speedometer plagued that heap. Based on my experience, that engine was not as you describe.
Everyone told me my 2.4L turbo Chrysler engine was crap but I donated the car to the local children's hospital with 275,000 miles on it. Last update I received, the hospital put another 50,000 miles on it. This is my second Chrysler after buying Japanese for years. I found both Chryslers to be bulletproof.
I disagree concerning the K - car engine. I remember many going up to 300k. GM produced many junk engines for a while. Chrysler engines went through a bad time as well. I drove mostly Ford vehicles including the Maverick with the straight 6 that could easily go beyond 300k with no issues. Generally the body's rotted out before the engine gave up.
v8, 6 , 4 didnt fail the electronic being used werent up to the task, once they were disconnected the engine ran fine...
Correct. Some people in the know got some great deals then made the repairs. Same deal on the 1978 Chrysler 'Lean Burn' 400, it needed a different distributor and a rejetted carb [which was sealed, requiring a rebuild].
The Mopar 2.2 was decent if you changed oil every 3k miles, it just couldn't handle gross neglect.
I'm pushing 70 and have wrenched quite a few motors but I've never seen a Crosley Cobra!
The 350 Olds diesel was NOT a converted gas engine. The 350 small smallblock and the 350 diesel are completely different. The main reason for its reputation was the high compression ratio to improve throttle response in a non-turbo diesel, the fact that there are only 4 head bolts per cylinder (most diesels have 6) resulting in head gasket failures and that there were almost no mechanics at the dealers that knew anything about maintenance on diesel engines. Putting head studs in goes a very long way to improve reliability, and solves the same issue the 6.0 powerstroke is know for (head gasket failures due to only 4 bolts per cylinder).
The Oldsmobile Diesel engines were also rushed to marked it wasn’t until the early 80s until most of the major issues were fixed
Isn't it wonderful how there exists a video that gets down to business and doesnt waste any time to get the info across. Keep up the good work haha
The 2.2 Chrysler is one of the best engines ever made. They had forged cranks rods and pistons and make great little performance engines. I know of several guys running these well into the 9’s in the 1/4 with stock internals
Chrysler 2.2/2.5 was a great engine.
2.7 was the real turd.
You should have included the 301 Pontiac
301 was fine, it was slow but very reliable. I had a 1979 Regal with 301 and it was a joy to drive. Transmission crapped out at 125,000 by the engine was going strong.
305 Chevy was the bad one blew a head gasket and that engine went to the junkyard
I can’t believe that the 5.4L 3-valve didn’t make this list. Two words: Cam Phasers!!!
Yeah, the Ford equivalent of the cam tensioners in the 88ci Harley Twin Cam. Thankfully it was fixed.....in the last year they made the damn thing.
And timing chains along with oil pumps.
The 97-08 Ford 4.6L, 5.4L, 6.8L Tritons should have been #1. No matter if they were the 2V, 3V or 4V they all spit sparkplugs after their first tune-ups and they were just overall garbage. Oh and don't forget the 6.0L Power Strokes.
In early 80's Ford made a 4.1 V8 a piece of turd.
@@sauluribe7082 It must of been so bad that I had never heard of the 4.1L V8 🤣
@@sauluribe7082 Never heard of a 4.1 v8 by Ford. What year did that come out?
@@gordonrosswhitehead5052 Maybe he meant Cadillac? The Cadillac 4.1L V8 was indeed a terrible engine but it had a high rev limit.
@@gordonrosswhitehead5052 I looked it up Ford made a 4.1L V8 for the Ford Falcon but it wasn't available in the U.S.
The “building of the text” is distracting.
As with other comments. The 2.2 should not be near this list. This was an economy engine developed by the same gentleman who made the Slant 6. Aside from timing belt maintenance and headgasket issues with high boost, they are bulletproof. The turbo was an afterthought, and gave v8's a run for their money back in the 80's.
I’m surprised the 1995 Ford Taurus engine didn’t get included as the worst engine. I’ve seen videos of some people revving the engines so hard they exploded. Literally. The pistons would collide into each other right after fifty five hundred miles.
The Chrysler 2.7 letire had inadequate oil return which caused premature engine failure if the engine oil wasn't kept clean with regular oil and filter .
The Ford 5.4 3 valve v8 has similar issues, it probably should have been on this list. The 3-valve can live when exceptional maintenance is followed - which often isn't the case.
The Chrysler 2.7 liter engines will fail even with proper maintenance.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, Ford's 300 straight-6 and Ford's 2.3 Lima are probably in the top 3 best engines ever built.
The Chevy small block, and it's larger brother the BB, were very well engineered engines
Chryslers 318 is also up there
@@pjimmbojimmbo1990 and everything Chrysler from the small block to the big block life cycled longer than any GM or Ford engines ever built.
@@chikechovis2499
Which 318? There were 2. A big clunky one called the Polyspherical, and then the smaller 318, both were in production at the same time for a while. We had a poly, and the damn thing never did right correctly
@@kenrobinson1099
And they all had oiling problems that needd to be addressed before they could be reliable if hopped up. Chevy SB and BB were almost bulletproof when it came to the blocks and oil system. As for longevity. Lets see, the SB Chevey was introduced in 1955, and I know was still being built in well into the 2000s. It may not have been used in cars/truck after 2003, but it remained/remains as an engine used in Marine Applications. So 50 yrs for sure. I know of no Ford, Chrysler engine that lasted that long. Don't start saying hemi, as the hemi what came along 15 yrs or so ago, is nothing like the one in the 50s and 60s.
Quad 4 engine ??? Notorious head gasket and head problems
This reminded me alot of a presentation I gave to the class back in 4th grade! Good throwback!
The 2.2L Chrysler was a great motor if maintained properly
2.7 liter is a high maintenance engine, if you use full synthetic oil and change it every 3000-4000 miles and change the water pump and timing chain every 70.000-80,000 miles you can avoid a lot of issues. Have a 2004 Dodge Stratus SXT with 157,000 and never had an issues owner needs to be proactive not reactive with this engine.
Which kind of proves the point of why it's on the list. There are so very many engines out there that you can just perform the factory maintenance on and they will be just fine, you don't have to go to such extremes. I have a 93 Miata 1.6L with 197,000 miles on it, still going strong, required maintenance only performed on it.
I had a 2000 camry with the 2.2 L four, the only thing I did to it, other than regular maintenance, changed the oil every 5000 miles,was a timing belt and a catalytic converter.i had that car for 10 years.had 258,000 miles on it when I sold it.still ran like a dream.
With this engine you should check the coolant level at least once a week and find out why the coolant is low immediately - the coolant level should remain constant. The same attention is needed for many BMW engines that have plastic cooling system parts that leak. Check the coolant frequently, get it fixed immediately and they will live a long life.
Actually, with most vehicles you should check the oil, transmission and coolant levels on a weekly basis. That's partly why some Toyotas make 450,000 miles.
I own a 03 Camry,I check all my fluid levels once a week.maintanance is a must.
Those 2.7 liter engines have almost no aftermarket support.
I ran a LOT of Chizzler 2.2s in my late teens/early 20s. You'd go a week with fluid levels fine (you always checked fluids every morning. LOL). Next morning you're down a quart, morning after you're down antifreeze. Fluids would disappear and be fire for a week or two, then the magic trick happens. The neatest trick it suddenly dying while driving. You'd get an obvious misfire and car would die. Secret? Carry a screwdriver and a spare ignition rotor with you. The rotors would crack and spin on the shaft, obviously making it out of time. I had several in the trunk for spares.
This dude obviously lived a sheltered life. How can you leave out the GM Northstar line of engines? The GM 3100 engine, Chrysler 2.4, Ford 6.0 Diesel, All these engines when properly maintained still had major issues from the factory.
James b is right ..... if you pull of a couple of wires the cadillac runs like a normal gm v8
The Olds diesel was a interesting car that got alot of attention from gear heads, either laughs or WTFs. Usually the people that have them won't sell them, believe me, I've tried lol
Ok , pat 🤣
Good name
Phil McCracken
I woulden mind having one of those engines in a el comino getting 45 mi to the gallon sounde pretty good out of a v8 .we drove a big old caddy to fla with 4 grown ups and luggage . Not at 55 mi i might add.
@@levanblevins5401 35 ?
Why would the vega make the list? That would mean the majority of the garbage on this list was built by gm. Can't have that!!
0:50 Which Olds diesel are you referring to? The first one shown here is a V6. Are you including that one and the V8?
What you describe about the 2.2L Chrysler engine sounds a-lot like the 2.6L Mitsubishi engine used as an upgrade in power to the early carbureted 2.2L engines.
Experienced none of this with 2.2’s. Besides anything carbureted was fair game before fuel injection.
The 2.6 had a Mikuni carb which is difficult to find and to tune. I have one.
Those 2.6L made so shitty engines always had starting and fuel problems. They weren’t an upgrade to the Chrysler 2.2, they were window sticker padding for sales people
I have a Sebring with the 2.7 and 260K on it still runs great
Any Chrysler motor that ends with .7 is typically garbage, but the 2.7 Chrysler V6 is the first engine that came to my mind. I changed the internal water pump along with replacing the timing chain with new guides for a woman, and I’ll never do one again. I went the extra mile and cleaned, repaired, and made sure everything I took off was to spec and in good working order before putting it back together. The motor ran a little better, but overall still had the same problems. The 2.7 takes the #1 spot for me. It’s under powered for the vehicles they were put in, and way too fragile with over complicated workings.
Could add a few more to this list. I’ve owned a few gems. Every 3.0 Mitsubishi engine I had in my dodge mini vans smoked like crazy. We called it the mosquito killer. Had a 4.1 Buick V6 which was garbage. The 305 V8 I had in my mid 70’s nova was garbage. I could go on.
My mom had a 1978 Caprice with a 305 V8 2bbl carb. It was completely gutless. You had to get a run going before trying to pass anyone. The odd thing was that it had a 10-bolt posi rearend. Her next Caprice had an Olds 307 V8 4bbl. That was a beast by comparison.
The 5.7 Olds diesel can be made to be reliable. You can find a forum on these engines. With the upgrades the motor would still be low performance, but they can be built to last. They get great fuel economy. One of the upgrades is head bolts from John Deere. Most of the fixes are reasonable and not expensive, but makes one wonder why GM didn't address these concerns during the testing and pilot phase. The motors also need clean fuel containing no water and frequent oil changes. It didn't help that dealer mechanics were not skilled with diesels. GM owners just wanted to get in and drive - like they had with the gasoline v8s, they usually didn't maintain them correctly and dealers didn't stress that aspect either, particularly when GM began paying the dealers to swap gasoline motors. In this era, diesel ownership was almost like a trucker doing a pre-trip inspection. The expensive Mercedes sedans had better overall design, but GM customers weren't paying a premium and weren't fully informed of the risks.
Had 145k on my old diesel rabbit before the timing belt was changed.
Only 100k over recommended change interval.
The Germans had the diesel thing done right in the 80s, or at least alot better then the domestic gm trash.
Looking back one of two things happened: either GM was cursed or It was trying until it succeeded to commit suicide. They went out of their way to make junk or untested and usually unappealing products at the time while going out of their way to piss of their customers and even make them feel stupid. The UAWs greed never helped but it was absolutely nothing compared to the decisions made by management. To top it off after they did all these things, when they finally would get all the bugs worked out of a design resulting a solid product they would cancel it. I could roll dice to make corporate choices and do better then GM management did in the late 70s through early 2000s.
I give Cadillac credit for attempting cylinder deactivation. As this gas saving feature is now standard on many vehicles they had the right idea. They just didn’t have the technology to pull it off back then.
I’m surprised the ol’ Caddy Northstar engines aren’t in this vidya.
The Chrysler 2.2L was the one they put in the early Caravans. Cast iron block, around 100hp. They were weak but lasted a long time, sipped gas and ran well. Certainly not the worst.
As far as the 2.7, mabe it was just not as forgiving as other engines because of owners neglect. I have close to 170 thousand on mine. Oil changes, plugs and 6 new coils, that's it. Opps, for got 2 new oxygen sensors.
The majority of 2.7s were time bombs. Even with stringent maintenance, 9/10 of em would fail around 95-105k. There's a reason why you don't see those M-body cars on the road anymore, and if you do, they're likely 3.2L cars.
I'm heavily involved in car clubs, and have never heard of any serious issues with the Chrysler 2.2L engine. As for the V8-6-4, it was a cylinder deactivation feature added in 1981 to the smallest (6.0L) version of the excellent Cadillac big block V8. The available computing power of the time proved insufficient for consistently smooth operation. Fortunately the system could be easily disabled, leaving you with very solid conventional V8. So, an engineering embarrassment to be sure, but with an easy fix and definitely not worthy of this list.
You forgot the Ford Triton family..
My wife and I bought a brand new Daytona with the 2.2 engine. At 130000 miles had to replace the head gasket with new head bolts. At just over 200,000 miles I donated the Daytona to my young cousin so she could go to college.
The triumph 3.0l V8 didn't make the list?
The engine used in the Stag. It was pretty bad.
@@alex1949 they did sound beautiful though
@@ryanmiller2143 Oh, they sure do! Probably the only redeeming factor.
@@alex1949 they actually have made giant leaps and strides with there engines. I've seen them with electric fans, bigger radiators, superchargers, fuel injection, and distributor less ignitions. Too bad none of this was available to my dad in 1980's Wisconsin when he restored his.
The Triumph 3.0L V8 is known world wide fordd it's unreliability but this guy didn't even mention the Ford 351 Modifieds or the 4.6L/5.4L/6.8L Tritons or the 6.0L Power Strokes. Those engines are the worst to ever come out of the U.S.
Dont' forget to give BMW an honorable mention for making unreliable V8's and putting them into Land Rovers and BMW 7 series.
Excuse me? Your #4 choice, the Cadillac V8-6-4 DOESEN'T even belong on your list. This 6.0L V8, with digital throttle body fuel injection, was one of the best engines Cadillac ever made! As a Cadillac mechanic, we had very few of these engines that ever had a problem nor required warranty repairs. Even later, working in the independent garage trade, the only problems I or others really ever saw was the belt-driven vacuum pump failing after many years of service. Also, these engines and the traditional Cadillac engines since late-1964 were always backed by the TH 400 automatic transmission. Because they were under-stressed, they lasted forever and very seldom failed. The #1 failure was that after many years of service, if properly service atleast every 30K miles, was that the seals dried up causing external leaks. With an external re-seal, without a complete tear-down, the transmission remained leak-free for many years. The 6.0L, non-modulated V8 and TH 400 transmission was used in commercial chassis Fleetwoods through the 1984 model year.
Because, as a Cadillac Mechanic, personally witnessed how good the 6.0L V8-6-4 was, after I began seeing all the failures of the new HT4100 Cadillac V8, off the bat, I got my parents one of the remaining 1981's. I inherited that Cadillac in 2018 when my mother passed and still have it. With over 100K miles, the engine still runs like new and doesn't leak a drop of anything. The car still drives like new, also. The only problems, were a new waterpump around 80K miles and having to rebuild the alternator twice. The alternator is original to the car. I changed the spark plugs, ignition wires, distributor cap & rotor at around 50K miles(and everything still looked good and I hesitated to replace them then).
The only problem that owners complained about with the V8-6-4 was that it vibrated in the 6 cyl. mode. Many would disconnect the 3rd gear sensor, to disable the modulated displacement function, but the better fix was to jumper the cylinder de-activation solenoids so that it only had an 4 or 8 cylinder mode.
If cylinder modulation was so bad, then why is it still being used in current V8's in many cars and trucks? They only use the 4 and 8 cylinder modes. Oh, and eventhough multi-port fuel injection made it much easier, if you want to talk about failures, they are known to burn valves and also to have camshaft failures. I've also seen that personally.
Probably the worst engine ever made? That would be the Oldsmobile diesel. From hands-on personal experience, the Cadillac HT series of V8, starting with the HT4100. This would be closely followed by the Cadillac Northstar V8, which had problems with running hot, pulling head studs and oil leaks from the valve covers and the separation between the cylinder block and crankcase. The stud and crankcase leaks required pulling the engine.
Where do I go if I needs obsolete spare parts? I go to auto dismantling yards and get them mostly from 1982 to 1985 full-size "D" chassis Cadillacs that used the HT4100, HT4500 and Olds diesels. Cadillac got smart and switched to Oldsmobile 5L V8's and eventually 5.7L LT-1 Chevy V8's.
Oh, and for the matter of engines slugging up, that was due to poor maintenance. Of the engines you've pointed out for that problem, I still see some on the road which are original and have never been apart or replaced, with over 100K miles on them or more. Use an ash-free top quality oil and change it every 3K miles is the trick(and it's no trick at all, it's common sense).
Dont forget the Vega engine. Aluminum pistons and block. No liners. Silicon in aluminum block to reduce friction which didnt last and caused oil burning.
if you changed the oil frequently on the 2.7 it was a relatively good engine....if....but no one did.
Interesting that the top 5 worst engines were all made in America 🤣. In fact if you allowed that there is a whole world outside the US and other countries make engines as well, there might have been some other engines in your top 5.
Don't forget that little rod-bender Chev 283!
The Oldsmobile 350 diesel was in my opinion, the biggest piece of 💩💩engine ever made. Just goes to show, you can’t re-engineer a gas engine into diesel. Huge failure.
Darn, I've only ever had one of them. But why did they leave the Vega out?
Great video. The tune sounds very familiar. If someone can give me name of the song and group I'd appreciate it
I had the 2.7 in my Sebring. I had issues with my sending unit and I constantly had an oil light come on. I had the car for 3 years and I put many KMS on it. My mechanic changed the oil but when he changed the oil filter he didn't check the old oil filter and left the old gasket up in the engine and put the new oil filter on top of it ! They took responsibility and got me a trade in for market value. I went with a Grand Prix and never looked back. It was a good car but I was just about to have issues with it.
Yeah I have my Intrepid still. It has it's problems but if you correct them it's actually a very good car. I normally don't give a shit about Chrysler but it would have been a great car if they just didn't cheap out on it.
Very interesting video the caddy that you put on looked like my uncle Tony's '81 or '82 Fleetwood brougham but I'm not sure on what engine it had under the hood but all I remember it was a awesome car and I was like 10-11 at the time Even my dad wanted one but we used it takes family trips especially across the border to Buffalo NY
The Chrysler 2.2 was actually known to be a good reliable engine that was cheap to repair. Some people experienced head gasket issues but a lot of that was due to bad mechanics. Also they had turbo I, II, III, and IV engines. Ranging from 146 to 224HP and were easily modded to over 400 and even 500HP. All forged internals etc.
If you want some other notorious engines I’d suggest the Cadillac 4.5 liter from the late 80’s. Blew headgaskets like crazy. The olds/Buick 307 from the early 80’s. And maybe the worst from a performance/reliability standpoint, the Pontiac turbo 301. The idea of an American V8 turbocharged was way ahead of its time, but didn’t deliver in any way
I am really surprised the Ford 255 wasn't mentioned. Probably because it only lasted 3 model years. A carburetor Escort could outrun it.
Actually the Oldsmobile diesel was a good engine in the later years. Problem was people didn’t know how to maintain them. Like draining the water from the separator and the engine is actually not the same internally as the regular Oldsmobile 350 either. They had different mains and caps to make them stronger
That V8-6-4 was NOT overenginereed, It WAS underengineered by engineers that lacked the required expertise to make the underlying idea work.
I was 110% expecting the BMW S85 V10 to be on this list
I'm just glad none of the ones in my livery made the list.
What about two timelessly bad Cadillac engines - the Northstar and the HT4100 ?
The Olds RWD 4.3 litre diesel V6 was a little better than the 5.7 diesel V8, but still had issues with the injection pump and starter motors. There were only about a thousand of them built, so most people don't know about them or don't remember them.
That diesel V6 was designed from the ground-up as a diesel engine.
@@michaelbenardo5695 it seemed to be a pretty good engine other than the starter motors only lasted about 20,000 miles each. And the injector pump. At 130,000 miles the starter went bad again and that's when I said "enough.". The rest of the car was great.
The Chrysler 2.2 was a damn fine engine. The problem was a poorly designed distributor with a plastic rotor that would separate from the metal Hall Effect vanes causing the timing to bounce around. Swap it out with an aftermarket part (10 minute job) and it would run forever.
You are wrong about the Chrysler 2.2. They are very stout engines. Maybe they have the occasional head gasket issue, but nothing major.
Crosley converted over to cast iron block version of the same 44 cu inch ohc engine which was rugged and dependable. A Crosley Hotshot won the best index of performance in 750 cc class at Lemans
The 2.2? Ohhhkaaay
The Olds diesel needed a water separator instead of just a idiot light. Idiots kept driving til it got water in the cylinder. That's operator error, not bad engineering.
Honorable mention: BMW M5 S85 V10. A lot of things wrong with the engine. Definitely in the top 5 worst engines in the world
i cant explain it but this is the best video i have ever seen
I owned several Cadillacs from the 1980s and although I had a few minor problems with my 81 eldorado 6.0L 8-6-4, I would have to say the worst one was the 4.1L HT-4100. Those things went through head gaskets like underwear!
My grandpa bought one of those Oldsmobile diesel cars brand new it ran for many years. But the funniest thing I remember was the first time my dad and I rode it in it, he told my grandpa " Gee Dad This car sounds like shit" Grandpa kinda frowned and said well it's diesel ya know. Shit was hilarious to me.
The Triton and Northstar are most definitely in the top 5.
6.0 powerstroke should be on here
Yeah the things listed under the Chrysler 2.2 were actually issues in the Mitsubishi 2.6. I’ve never heard of those problems with the Chrysler 2.2/2.5 besides the 2.2 being a bit underpowered in some N/A applications. Other than that, they were bullet proof. They were also loosely based on the bullet proof /6. So Imma call 🧢. ALSO, the early 2.7v6 were bad, the later ones, post 2002 were mostly unproblematic. Many Intrepids and 300/Chargers got up to 200-300k miles on them.
Anyone ever heard of Jaguar, Renault, Fiat, Alfa Romeo and other European makes?