Ford Ecoboost Engine Failure (TWICE)
Discussion
I rented a Brazilian built Eco Sport 8 years ago to drive around The Andes in (no Hiluxes were left). It looked like a mini Freelander (or an even smaller Ford Explorer) - it was absolutely fine and surprisingly good on dirt roads. The n/a petrol engine lost a noticeable bit of power above 3000m.
53catalina said:
Has anyone experienced a failed engine? 1.0Ecoboost in a Focus Titanium
After 11 months and 31,000miles the engine in our car stopped and was recovered to a local ford dealer. After some discussions Ford replaced the engine, asking the dealership not to touch the engine, just replace it. With this being a newly launched engine and our car being high mileage we assumed Ford were taking the cautious route to make sure it was not an inherent problem with the engine. There cant be many cars with this high mileage.
Obviously we were pleased to have a new engine, all was fine.
However, after another 11 months and 31,000miles (Exactly the same time period) the engine has failed again. Whilst there was an obvious loss of water when the car had stopped, this all happened really quickly. As soon as the light came on, the car was pulled over and shut down.
Have we just been really unlucky? Or has anyone else suffered problems?
Oh my goodness. Imagine my shock when I read this whilst we were waiting for the AA to attend our 62 plate Ford Focus 1.0 Ecoboost which failed (suspected blown head gasket) on Saturday at 31k miles! I could not believe that our stories are so similar (although I can now believe it). When I got home I checked the service history and voila! Ford had also put the wrong oil on during the 2014 Service (5w30 instead of 5w20). Car is with Ford now and of course they are sloppy shouldered but I will not give up, we are not responsible for their poor manufacturing. The car was even recalled last November for the coolant pipe issue and blows up 6 months later.... Wish me luck (or should I say Ford because I will escalate to the end and ensure that they at least receive publicity for this if nothing else).After 11 months and 31,000miles the engine in our car stopped and was recovered to a local ford dealer. After some discussions Ford replaced the engine, asking the dealership not to touch the engine, just replace it. With this being a newly launched engine and our car being high mileage we assumed Ford were taking the cautious route to make sure it was not an inherent problem with the engine. There cant be many cars with this high mileage.
Obviously we were pleased to have a new engine, all was fine.
However, after another 11 months and 31,000miles (Exactly the same time period) the engine has failed again. Whilst there was an obvious loss of water when the car had stopped, this all happened really quickly. As soon as the light came on, the car was pulled over and shut down.
Have we just been really unlucky? Or has anyone else suffered problems?
Yes 53catalina I have experienced an engine in my Ford Ecoboost and thanks to yours and others' similar reports found someone who has I think made modifications to my replacement engine to stop it happening again.
My Ford Fiesta 1.0 L ecoboost engine overheated and blew a head gasket on 24 April 2016 only 2 years into it’s 3 year warranty. The Ford dealership I bought the car from honoured the warranty and installed a new engine. I did a great deal of research over the eight weeks or so it took for the engine to be replaced and found that there were six or so other owners whose engine met a similar fate including you 53catalina.
I am a physiotherapist by trade with academic qualifications in chemistry and physiology. I was baffled by my car failing in this way so soon. After my internet research I called several mechanics specializing in radiators and auto electrical. My Ford dealership assessed the car and diagnosed the cause to be water pump failure, but did not actually look at the water pump impellers and had nothing to offer as to why the water pump failed.
I felt certain my replacement engine would fail at low kilometers just as the first one did. I was considering installing a turbo timer in the new engine to avoid heat issues at switch off. I thought the problem was that I lived on top of a large hill and that the engine got too hot (heat soak?) at switch off. I consulted a local autoelectrician about a turbo timer and he suggested not making any decisions until I had talked to Mike Vine, an experienced turbocharger specialist in Capalaba, QLD Australia.
I talked to Mike and he listened carefully to my circumstances. He also asked what I thought were more relevant questions than anyone else I had talked to. So when I picked my car up with its new engine I drove the 90 min straight to Mike Vine. He took two weeks to assess, diagnose, and treat the problem. An account of what he did in his own words is provided after my account.
When I picked up my car from Mike I still had a few questions, such as why did he think the engine temperature spiked so extraordinarily high (360 degrees Fahrenheit / 182 degrees Celsius)? He said he estimated three quarters of the coolant cycled back to the engine via the water pump and only one quarter or so ever went to the radiator. This makes the engine run hot around, i.e., 230 degrees Fahrenheit under normal in traffic driving, presumably this was the Ford designer’s intent so as to reduce emissions. Mike said some motor bikes have been designed to run this hot. But what these motor bikes don’t have is the exhaust manifold inside the cylinder head. He said exhaust manifolds tend to be very hot components of a car, indeed “red hot” if the car is running at full power as might happen travelling up a large hill or mountain. He expected a “steam jacket” would surround the exhaust manifold from boiled coolant. The steam jacket would actually prevent the liquid component of the coolant from coming into contact with the exhaust manifold while the car is running at full power. Then when backing off from full power, the exhaust manifold would cool just enough for the steam jacket to dissipate allowing coolant to come into direct contact with the metal of the manifold. Due to the higher heat conductance of metal to water than steam to water, this would cause the dramatic spike in temperature observed.
Mike suggested the coolant touching the water pump impellers could be even hotter than 360 degrees Fahrenheit and that it was likely the impellers, which are made of plastic, broke from thermal stress. Mike said other plastic components of the engine would also be vulnerable to this kind of heat, as would the aluminum cylinder head.
Did not the designers of the ecoboost engine test it properly? Did they not care if these engines failed inside or worse still just outside warranty?
For those whose ecoboost engine has just failed inside warranty I would recommend consulting Mike Vine. For those considering buying a car with an ecoboost engine or any engine designed to run hotter than traditional engines to lower emissions (generally European designed cars) I would make the same suggestion.
Sincerely,
Ben Gaffney
Mike Vines account:
26 June 2016
Our First Ecoboost Experience
The owner of a 2013 Ford WZ Ecosport Fiesta with the one litre 3 cylinder Ecoboost engine phoned recently and asked us to look at his engine regarding its questionable future reliability.
This vehicle has 33,000KM from new and has just had the complete engine replaced under warranty. The owners internet research found many other vehicles of the same type also failing their engines at similar kilometres of use also requiring new engines, with some up to their third engine within warranty.
With no apparent changes made to prevent repeat engine failure our customer saw no reason why his car would not also repeat fail the engine within another 33,000km of use at which time the warranty would be expired giving him a repair cost of up to $10,000, on a vehicle value of not much more.
Based on internet information of other failures predominating cylinder head, head gasket and water pump we set about getting to understand this little 3 cylinder engine’s cooling system. The cooling system is quite complex using one mechanical water pump, one electric water pump, two thermostats, one pressure bypass valve, one radiator, one radiator electric fan, one oil cooler and a three stage progressive system staged by coolant temperature with the electric pump staged separately for the turbo cooling. The system is designed to warm the engine very quickly and run a normal engine temperature of 220°F. The engine also has the exhaust manifold intergrated inside the cylinder head with coolant flowing over it.
Testing the cooling system using Digital thermocouples inside the cooling plumbing showed some very interesting temperatures. With normal in traffic driving the coolant leaving the cylinder head showed up to 230°F but when driven with full power and then slowing down the meter went to 360°F. At first we suspected a faulty digital meter but not so. While this testing was occurring the radiator bottom tank was cool showing the engine was recycling its own heat with only a small percentage of heat directed through the radiator.
On full power the engine runs 20PSI boost with a very small turbo running up to 240,000RPM. With a conventional engine of similar configuration the exhaust manifold would be red hot when on sustained full power. Therefore I expect this engine has a red hot manifold surround by coolant inside the cylinder head adding heat to the normal engine s heat which explains the extreme spike in coolant temps immediately following full power use. Our measured 360°F outside the head is most likely exceeded inside the head with the possibility of coolant boiling also. I can’t see this engine being able to survive under these circumstances.
After studying the cooling system layout and testing many alternative theories we ended up changing one thermostat and one coolant return pipe connection location and presto no more extreme temps no matter how hard the engine was driven with no noticeable performance difference. The maximum head coolant outlet temp is
190°F. We also fitted a coolant loss alarm to give the best protection of the engine.
With the lower temperatures this engine should live much longer, only time and kilometres will tell. Not long ago a new small car would easily give a quarter of million kilometres of reliable engine life compared to the current circumstances where eight engines are needed. Something is seriously wrong with the rules modern engines are built to.
Yours in motoring
Mike Vine
My Ford Fiesta 1.0 L ecoboost engine overheated and blew a head gasket on 24 April 2016 only 2 years into it’s 3 year warranty. The Ford dealership I bought the car from honoured the warranty and installed a new engine. I did a great deal of research over the eight weeks or so it took for the engine to be replaced and found that there were six or so other owners whose engine met a similar fate including you 53catalina.
I am a physiotherapist by trade with academic qualifications in chemistry and physiology. I was baffled by my car failing in this way so soon. After my internet research I called several mechanics specializing in radiators and auto electrical. My Ford dealership assessed the car and diagnosed the cause to be water pump failure, but did not actually look at the water pump impellers and had nothing to offer as to why the water pump failed.
I felt certain my replacement engine would fail at low kilometers just as the first one did. I was considering installing a turbo timer in the new engine to avoid heat issues at switch off. I thought the problem was that I lived on top of a large hill and that the engine got too hot (heat soak?) at switch off. I consulted a local autoelectrician about a turbo timer and he suggested not making any decisions until I had talked to Mike Vine, an experienced turbocharger specialist in Capalaba, QLD Australia.
I talked to Mike and he listened carefully to my circumstances. He also asked what I thought were more relevant questions than anyone else I had talked to. So when I picked my car up with its new engine I drove the 90 min straight to Mike Vine. He took two weeks to assess, diagnose, and treat the problem. An account of what he did in his own words is provided after my account.
When I picked up my car from Mike I still had a few questions, such as why did he think the engine temperature spiked so extraordinarily high (360 degrees Fahrenheit / 182 degrees Celsius)? He said he estimated three quarters of the coolant cycled back to the engine via the water pump and only one quarter or so ever went to the radiator. This makes the engine run hot around, i.e., 230 degrees Fahrenheit under normal in traffic driving, presumably this was the Ford designer’s intent so as to reduce emissions. Mike said some motor bikes have been designed to run this hot. But what these motor bikes don’t have is the exhaust manifold inside the cylinder head. He said exhaust manifolds tend to be very hot components of a car, indeed “red hot” if the car is running at full power as might happen travelling up a large hill or mountain. He expected a “steam jacket” would surround the exhaust manifold from boiled coolant. The steam jacket would actually prevent the liquid component of the coolant from coming into contact with the exhaust manifold while the car is running at full power. Then when backing off from full power, the exhaust manifold would cool just enough for the steam jacket to dissipate allowing coolant to come into direct contact with the metal of the manifold. Due to the higher heat conductance of metal to water than steam to water, this would cause the dramatic spike in temperature observed.
Mike suggested the coolant touching the water pump impellers could be even hotter than 360 degrees Fahrenheit and that it was likely the impellers, which are made of plastic, broke from thermal stress. Mike said other plastic components of the engine would also be vulnerable to this kind of heat, as would the aluminum cylinder head.
Did not the designers of the ecoboost engine test it properly? Did they not care if these engines failed inside or worse still just outside warranty?
For those whose ecoboost engine has just failed inside warranty I would recommend consulting Mike Vine. For those considering buying a car with an ecoboost engine or any engine designed to run hotter than traditional engines to lower emissions (generally European designed cars) I would make the same suggestion.
Sincerely,
Ben Gaffney
Mike Vines account:
26 June 2016
Our First Ecoboost Experience
The owner of a 2013 Ford WZ Ecosport Fiesta with the one litre 3 cylinder Ecoboost engine phoned recently and asked us to look at his engine regarding its questionable future reliability.
This vehicle has 33,000KM from new and has just had the complete engine replaced under warranty. The owners internet research found many other vehicles of the same type also failing their engines at similar kilometres of use also requiring new engines, with some up to their third engine within warranty.
With no apparent changes made to prevent repeat engine failure our customer saw no reason why his car would not also repeat fail the engine within another 33,000km of use at which time the warranty would be expired giving him a repair cost of up to $10,000, on a vehicle value of not much more.
Based on internet information of other failures predominating cylinder head, head gasket and water pump we set about getting to understand this little 3 cylinder engine’s cooling system. The cooling system is quite complex using one mechanical water pump, one electric water pump, two thermostats, one pressure bypass valve, one radiator, one radiator electric fan, one oil cooler and a three stage progressive system staged by coolant temperature with the electric pump staged separately for the turbo cooling. The system is designed to warm the engine very quickly and run a normal engine temperature of 220°F. The engine also has the exhaust manifold intergrated inside the cylinder head with coolant flowing over it.
Testing the cooling system using Digital thermocouples inside the cooling plumbing showed some very interesting temperatures. With normal in traffic driving the coolant leaving the cylinder head showed up to 230°F but when driven with full power and then slowing down the meter went to 360°F. At first we suspected a faulty digital meter but not so. While this testing was occurring the radiator bottom tank was cool showing the engine was recycling its own heat with only a small percentage of heat directed through the radiator.
On full power the engine runs 20PSI boost with a very small turbo running up to 240,000RPM. With a conventional engine of similar configuration the exhaust manifold would be red hot when on sustained full power. Therefore I expect this engine has a red hot manifold surround by coolant inside the cylinder head adding heat to the normal engine s heat which explains the extreme spike in coolant temps immediately following full power use. Our measured 360°F outside the head is most likely exceeded inside the head with the possibility of coolant boiling also. I can’t see this engine being able to survive under these circumstances.
After studying the cooling system layout and testing many alternative theories we ended up changing one thermostat and one coolant return pipe connection location and presto no more extreme temps no matter how hard the engine was driven with no noticeable performance difference. The maximum head coolant outlet temp is
190°F. We also fitted a coolant loss alarm to give the best protection of the engine.
With the lower temperatures this engine should live much longer, only time and kilometres will tell. Not long ago a new small car would easily give a quarter of million kilometres of reliable engine life compared to the current circumstances where eight engines are needed. Something is seriously wrong with the rules modern engines are built to.
Yours in motoring
Mike Vine
Ben gaffney said:
When I picked up my car from Mike I still had a few questions, such as why did he think the engine temperature spiked so extraordinarily high (360 degrees Fahrenheit / 182 degrees Celsius)?
It's not possible for the coolant to be at 182 Celsius since it would require a coolant pressure of around 10 bar or 145psi which is about ten times higher than a typical pressure relief valve on a header tank. I suspect Mr Vine screwed up a measurement here.Ben gaffney said:
Yes 53catalina I have experienced an engine in my Ford Ecoboost and thanks to yours and others' similar reports found someone who has I think made modifications to my replacement engine to stop it happening again...................................
Thanks for posting BenInteresting to read
Ben gaffney said:
He expected a “steam jacket” would surround the exhaust manifold from boiled coolant. The steam jacket would actually prevent the liquid component of the coolant from coming into contact with the exhaust manifold while the car is running at full power. Then when backing off from full power, the exhaust manifold would cool just enough for the steam jacket to dissipate allowing coolant to come into direct contact with the metal of the manifold. Due to the higher heat conductance of metal to water than steam to water, this would cause the dramatic spike in temperature observed.
Mike suggested the coolant touching the water pump impellers could be even hotter than 360 degrees Fahrenheit and that it was likely the impellers, which are made of plastic, broke from thermal stress . Mike said other plastic components of the engine would also be vulnerable to this kind of heat, as would the aluminum cylinder head.
Does he mean that it was cavitation effect? That often does in pump impellorsMike suggested the coolant touching the water pump impellers could be even hotter than 360 degrees Fahrenheit and that it was likely the impellers, which are made of plastic, broke from thermal stress . Mike said other plastic components of the engine would also be vulnerable to this kind of heat, as would the aluminum cylinder head.
Being Australia the ambient temp will most likely be higher which may be a factor ?
Like MR2 Mike says, are those temps actually possible ?
My wifes aunt had a failure of her Ecoboost Focus 125 bhp, apparently down to the defective coolant pipe issue on early models.
We have a Fiesta with the engine in, remapped for extra pain.
I think people are looking for issues due tot he small capacity and relatively high power but there are hundreds of thousands of them out there now, its been a while and it isnt exactly getting a reputation considering its been around four years now.
I cant see demand waning, the publics love affair with the diesel isnt quite as rosy and not everyone wants a big petrol, the downsized turbos make a lot of sense, drive an Ecoboost vs the NA Fiesta, my wife had a 1.25 as a courtesy car, itself not a bad engine, she thought it was the same as hers but broken.
Anyway, if it breaks, it is in all sorts and they get crashed like anything else so there are loads of them for sale from breakers for £700 or so, £300 - £500 for a mechanic to put it in, actually, to me, the £700 for an engine is cheap so it perhaps shows demand isnt that high for second hand ones so perhaps they arent braking, or I suppose most will still be in warranty.
Wonder what the highest mileage one is ?
Like MR2 Mike says, are those temps actually possible ?
My wifes aunt had a failure of her Ecoboost Focus 125 bhp, apparently down to the defective coolant pipe issue on early models.
We have a Fiesta with the engine in, remapped for extra pain.
I think people are looking for issues due tot he small capacity and relatively high power but there are hundreds of thousands of them out there now, its been a while and it isnt exactly getting a reputation considering its been around four years now.
I cant see demand waning, the publics love affair with the diesel isnt quite as rosy and not everyone wants a big petrol, the downsized turbos make a lot of sense, drive an Ecoboost vs the NA Fiesta, my wife had a 1.25 as a courtesy car, itself not a bad engine, she thought it was the same as hers but broken.
Anyway, if it breaks, it is in all sorts and they get crashed like anything else so there are loads of them for sale from breakers for £700 or so, £300 - £500 for a mechanic to put it in, actually, to me, the £700 for an engine is cheap so it perhaps shows demand isnt that high for second hand ones so perhaps they arent braking, or I suppose most will still be in warranty.
Wonder what the highest mileage one is ?
Mr2Mike said:
Ben gaffney said:
When I picked up my car from Mike I still had a few questions, such as why did he think the engine temperature spiked so extraordinarily high (360 degrees Fahrenheit / 182 degrees Celsius)?
It's not possible for the coolant to be at 182 Celsius since it would require a coolant pressure of around 10 bar or 145psi which is about ten times higher than a typical pressure relief valve on a header tank. I suspect Mr Vine screwed up a measurement here.I think that's the point of what's being said, the coolant being steam rather that liquid.
rovermorris999 said:
Indeed. It is eminently possible for there to be localised hotspots while the overall temperatures and pressures are within 'normal' limits.
It's not possible for there to be either water or steam present at 182 Celsius under typical cooling system pressures. Saturated steam at 182C requires about 10bar pressure.Edited by Mr2Mike on Thursday 7th July 14:27
We are now on 68k miles in our Fiesta 1.0 Ecoboost, less than 3 years old. I plan to keep the car until it dies as we do such high mileage.
I'll post an update when anything significant happens. But for anyone considering buying an Ecoboost engined Ford, I can see how you might be put off by some of the comments and horror stories. My advice is don't, they are fantastic engines from my experience.
Maybe my view will be different when the engine dies, let's see...
I'll post an update when anything significant happens. But for anyone considering buying an Ecoboost engined Ford, I can see how you might be put off by some of the comments and horror stories. My advice is don't, they are fantastic engines from my experience.
Maybe my view will be different when the engine dies, let's see...
Mr2Mike said:
rovermorris999 said:
Indeed. It is eminently possible for there to be localised hotspots while the overall temperatures and pressures are within 'normal' limits.
It's not possible for there to be either water or steam present at 182 Celsius under typical cooling system pressures. Saturated steam at 182C requires about 10bar pressure.Edited by Mr2Mike on Thursday 7th July 14:27
The figures you are quoting are the saturation point of steam in the presence of water when the whole body of water is being heated.
With localised heating, superheated steam can exist at lower pressure if the local heating of the water causes cavitation and therefore insulation of the steam from the coolant.
There are agricultural soil sterilizers that emit 200 deg c superheated steam at atmospheric pressure.
oakdale said:
Who mentioned saturated steam?
I did. AFAIK you can't go from water to superheated steam within a boiling mass of water in a single step, wet and/or saturated steam will first be produced.oakdale said:
The figures you are quoting are the saturation point of steam in the presence of water when the whole body of water is being heated.
Like a cooling system.oakdale said:
With localised heating, superheated steam can exist at lower pressure if the local heating of the water causes cavitation and therefore insulation of the steam from the coolant.
Localised boiling is entirely possible, but to get sustained pockets of superheated steam at 182C surrounded by water at a far lower temperature seems rather unlikely. Also cavitation seems rather unlikely in this context, do you mean flash boiling?oakdale said:
There are agricultural soil sterilizers that emit 200 deg c superheated steam at atmospheric pressure.
From a simple boiler i.e. directly from water to superheated steam without further heating?Thanks for everyone interest. With regard to J4CO's question:
"Being Australia the ambient temp will most likely be higher which may be a factor ?"
I don't think this is a major factor because many of these failures have been in climates generally colder than Australia. For example, there is someone who had her 1.0L ecoboost replaced under warranty "...because it was overheating (probably due to leaking gasket...)" who says in what sounds like a British accent "Nine degrees outside and the coolant is boiling".
My suspicion is that hills and or mountains may more of an issue. When I asked Mike Vine about this he said he thought a similar fate was likely for all these engines hill or no hill. Perhaps hills make it happen faster?
"Being Australia the ambient temp will most likely be higher which may be a factor ?"
I don't think this is a major factor because many of these failures have been in climates generally colder than Australia. For example, there is someone who had her 1.0L ecoboost replaced under warranty "...because it was overheating (probably due to leaking gasket...)" who says in what sounds like a British accent "Nine degrees outside and the coolant is boiling".
My suspicion is that hills and or mountains may more of an issue. When I asked Mike Vine about this he said he thought a similar fate was likely for all these engines hill or no hill. Perhaps hills make it happen faster?
Ben gaffney said:
I am a physiotherapist by trade with academic qualifications in chemistry and physiology.
I'm a CEng with a BEng, design engines for a living, have designed cylinder heads with integrated exhaust manifolds (IEMs) for two OEMs and I wrote a report on the Honda IEM patent about ten+ years ago.Ben gaffney said:
... He said exhaust manifolds tend to be very hot components of a car, indeed “red hot” if the car is running at full power as might happen travelling up a large hill or mountain. He expected a “steam jacket” would surround the exhaust manifold from boiled coolant. The steam jacket would actually prevent the liquid component of the coolant from coming into contact with the exhaust manifold while the car is running at full power. Then when backing off from full power, the exhaust manifold would cool just enough for the steam jacket to dissipate allowing coolant to come into direct contact with the metal of the manifold. Due to the higher heat conductance of metal to water than steam to water, this would cause the dramatic spike in temperature observed...
I didn't do the Ford head, but I've done others. They don't work the way Mike thinks they do.Exhaust manifolds glow red hot because they have 900 degree C air inside and nowhere for that heat to go except the nice insulating air around the outside of the manifold. So the manifold gets up to 600-700 degrees.
If you integrate the manifold into the cylinder head the heat can go into your coolant jacket, so it doesn't get red hot, in exactly the same way that exhaust ports in traditional cylinder heads haven't got red hot since shortly after the invention of the internal combustion engine.
Maybe more heat gets rejected into the coolant, but not a quantum leap in heat rejection. In fact a tightly designed IEM can have less internal surface area than a poorly designed traditional head (far fewer geometry restrictions due to loads of manifold fasteners).
You design the coolant jacket around the manifold to keep the velocity high enough to stop local hot spots causing steam pockets (so the coolant is never in the same place long enough to get too hot), yet never so fast that it can't absorb enough heat to cool the head or start to cavitate. This is the same process that is used for coolant jackets around traditional exhaust ports and combustion chambers.
Ben gaffney said:
Did not the designers of the ecoboost engine test it properly?
After initial design you go through several iterations of analysis and redesign, then several phases prototype testing until your production design passes the validation tests (durability, thermal cycle, vehicle testing, etc).So to answer your question, no, the designers don't test it at all, but the development team do, and nothing gets to production without passing the corporate targets for durability. Just like it's been for decades.
Ben gaffney said:
Did they not care if these engines failed inside or worse still just outside warranty?
Yes, obviously you care if an engine fails. Best case you get dragged down to the test cell and shouted at, worst case is fire. Nothing gets my attention like an engine failure - you want to make damn sure whatever went wrong gets fixed.Plus I know a few guys who worked on the K-series, poor b
ds.As for the warranty, let me explain again to the internet how durability testing works. You set a target of 200,000miles, 300,000km, whatever. You test to that target, and strip the engine down to inspect everything and check it's within the pass criteria. No one tests beyond the targets. No one ever designs to make something fail just after that target. It's just impossible to design for that sort of controlled targeted failure in a complex mechanical system, and there is no motivation to try. I take it as a technical compliment but moral insult that anyone ever suggests it. I'm not a software engineer FFS.
After the durability target has been passed you should be left with a perfectly serviceable engine, but no one, not the designers, development team or Mike from your local garage will know what happens next because no one has the data.
Even if you worked on the project you'll only know about things that went wrong within the targets which were then beefed up - so they are not likely to be the thing that fails next.
Plus no one wants failures after warranty. No one benefits, except Mike in your local garage, who even if they are a franchised dealer won't be passing a penny back to the engineers who designed, tested and built the engines. It's just paranoia, except for those Renault headlight design guys who get 50 quid every time a Megane needs a new bulb.
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