engines - crappiest of them all ?

[Pat H]

My nominations:


V-Twin: Anything in a Harley Davidson.
Triple: Yamaha XS 750.
I4: Ford CVH. Awful.
Flat 4: That wheezy lump in the back of a VW.
V6: Cologne V6. For that siamesed exhaust port and for being inferior in every way to the Essex.
V8: Lotus V8. For taking such a long time to make an appearance, for that flat plane crank and the uninspiring noise.
V12: The Jag V12. In the E Type it was dull compared to the 3.8 and 4.2 sixes. And they never seemed to run on all 12 cylinders. And for being strangled, silenced and cursed with an auto box in the XJS.


Surprised to see the 1275 A Series nominated. A nicely tuned Mini with a decent LCB and head sounds fab and goes well.

Sad to see the Essex V6 nominated. They sound good and suited big Capris and Granadas. Shame they weigh as much as a tank.

The Triumph V8 was deservedly maligned, but sound superb and can be made reliable these days. Loads of character from such a small capacity V8.

The TDCi 16v diesels are dull and characterless, but miles better than the single cam Ford diesels of the 1990s.

The K Series may not have been the most durable motor, but were compact, light and powerful. Suited a Seven perfectly and deserves far better than to be nominated as the crappest I4.

I can't get too excited about the RV8, but it certainly can't be considered the crappest V8. In my utterly biased opinion they can be made to sound far more pleasant than any of those ghastly shrieking overrated Ferrari V8s.

[jamies30]

iloveboost said:

The V5 was probably the least popular engine because other than a nice noise, why wouldn't you buy a 1.8T? I don't think it was crap.

I ran one for a while, and I do think it was crap.

Which V5 is worse?

[MontyC]

NSU Ro80 very unreliable being an early rotary.

[markymarkthree]

2.3 sierra diesel got the shock of my life when i attempted to overtake another car.
Non-turbo totally gutless piece of krap.

[ChemicalChaos]

muckymotor said:

I'm surprised to see the air cooled vw flat four mentioned, its a great engine

it would make more power and use less fuel if it derived its motive force from a waterfall of petrol gushing onto the cooling fan

[GSE]

Klippie said:

It was a straight 4...in a Simca, Christ it was horrid rattled like a bag of spanners

I remember those! That Simca engine must have had the noisiest tappets of any production engine, you could hear one coming from a mile away.

My nomination goes to the Vauxhall 1256cc engine from the 1970's. This was an enlarged version of the 1159 cc unit, which itself was as smooth as a sewing machine. The 1256 cc version in comparison felt like a bag of spanners. It didn't like to rev and suffered from horrible harmonic vibrations throughout the rev range. I think somebody got the calculations wrong when it was enlarged to 1256cc. The tappets needed to be adjusted weekly and you were lucky if you got 50,000 miles out of it before the main bearings went.

The Ford Pinto used in Cortinas and early Sierras was as rough as an old dog too.

muckymotor said:

I'm surprised to see the air cooled vw flat four mentioned, its a great engine

You have got to be joking! A horrible farty sounding thing that converts most of the petrol it uses into sound rather than motion.

Edited by GSE on Friday 22 May 15:55

[Limpet]

itcaptainslow said:

Limpet said:

itcaptainslow said:

pigeonskirt said:

Rover K series??

Why?

I don't think it's the worst, but it's a bit crap. How many otherwise tidy, well cared for Rovers end up in scrapyards or in the classifieds as spares or repair because of HGF?

I accept that the K is very innovative, and has lots of positive attributes, but it has this massive, fundamental issue that you can't really overlook if you plan to own one for any period of time.

It perplexes me as it's an issue which can be sorted comparatively cheaply and permanently. Other than the HGF issue, it's lightweight, tuneable, economical and produces decent power even in standard trim. Likes revs and sounds good too.

I'd say the HGF problem is fairly minor compared to issues other modern engines have!

I completely agree on the positive attributes you list, and it is a remarkable engine in many ways. However, I'm not sure I agree this is easily sorted permanently. Yes, some K's get a relatively cheap head gasket replacement and run on without issues. But mmny fail repeatedly, even with MLS gasket sets and competent mechanical labour.

Part of the problem is that I don't believe anyone has ever definitively pinned down the K series head gasket issues to one particular cause. I've read compelling cases for plastic dowels, thermostat location, non MLS gasket kits, excessively hard driving when cold (increasing thermal shock when the 'stat opens), coolant running low through neglect, mechanical incompetence during the repair, and poor quality head castings. It's a basket case of an engine from this point of view.

[cerb4.5lee]

ellipsis said:

Will Cerb4.5Lee's nomination for 'the worst V8 ever' be the S65B40 (as installed in the E90/2/3 M3) ?

[cerb4.5lee]

ellipsis said:

Zod said:

I take it this is a hobby horse of his.

I think he's fine with the engine, less so the mass it has to deal with...

T'was meant in good humour and am sure it'll be received as such

Spot on! the engine itself is obviously highly rated for a good reason but I would have liked to have enjoyed it in something less barge like!

[cerb4.5lee]

My vote for the crappiest of them all would be BMW`s 4 pot 2.0d and I seriously hated that engine big time and still to this day I am baffled at how many millions of them they sell...its noisy, unrefined and just not very enjoyable to sit behind...it is frugal though I will give it that.

[SuperchargedVR6]

iloveboost said:

Andy665 said:

Many will disagree but how the combined resources of Volkswagen Group could create such a dull, characterless engine as the 1.8T lump is beyond me. Had two cars with those engines and hared them - tuneable maybe but that's like sprinkling a dog turf with glitter and saying its now pretty

I think they were good engines for their time, but the 1.8T sounded dull compared to some five and six cylinder engines. You could make the same cricicim of most four cylinder Saab and Volvo turbo engines around that time. A map and intake will liven up the noise and power delivery.

Yeah there are far worse engines out there than the 1.8T. What it lacks in charisma, it makes up for in shove and reliability (if left standard). I don't think anyone buys a 4 pot for sound though, or do they? I know folk will hammer "VTEC" into their keyboards, but really? It just sounds thrashy and coarse to me. Just about the only 4 cyl engine that sounds any good, imo, is the Scooby flat 4.

[cerb4.5lee]

iva cosworth said:

I was going to agree on CVH ,then remembered I was a serial owner of the things.

8 I believe in Escort MK3 and Fiesta MK3s

Strangely I actually liked the CVH and I had it in a MK3 1.3L Escort...maybe it was because my previous car was a Skoda Super Estelle so compared to that it felt pretty refined and spritely!

My Dad had a XR3 and I always liked that as a car as well.

[Halmyre]

Pat H said:

My nominations:


V-Twin: Anything in a Harley Davidson.
Triple: Yamaha XS 750.
I4: Ford CVH. Awful.
Flat 4: That wheezy lump in the back of a VW.
V6: Cologne V6. For that siamesed exhaust port and for being inferior in every way to the Essex.
V8: Lotus V8. For taking such a long time to make an appearance, for that flat plane crank and the uninspiring noise.
V12: The Jag V12. In the E Type it was dull compared to the 3.8 and 4.2 sixes. And they never seemed to run on all 12 cylinders. And for being strangled, silenced and cursed with an auto box in the XJS.

The same strangled V12 that could, forty years ago, sling one-and-three-quarter tons of XJS along at nearly 150mph? In the days when 150mph was about twice as fast as a bog-standard family saloon.

[petrolsniffer]

Limpet said:

Part of the problem is that I don't believe anyone has ever definitively pinned down the K series head gasket issues to one particular cause. I've read compelling cases for plastic dowels, thermostat location, non MLS gasket kits, excessively hard driving when cold (increasing thermal shock when the 'stat opens), coolant running low through neglect, mechanical incompetence during the repair, and poor quality head castings. It's a basket case of an engine from this point of view.

Indeed I learnt this recently to my detriment sold at a £400 loss to a mechanic who will fix it up.

Good thing I kept an eye on the coolant level like a hawk once a week noticed it going down straight to garage diagnosed HGF.

Never ran the coolant low I topped it up every time after noticing the level dropping slightly No leaks anywhere that I could see it was actually very slowly seeping out the head gasket onto the under tray and evaporating right at the back of the engine

Never drove it hard from cold.

Apprently it was done 2 years ago so I'm thinking it wasn't done properly.

Like others say brilliant engine,great engine note for a 4 banger,quite torquey I can see a zr 160 being fun.

But for me never again.

To me it seems they specced the cooling system to be half the size of other systems I've had? iirc wasn't the k series only suppose to be a 1.1-1.4 in the beginning?

I mean the expansion tank was twice as small as the ford puma 1.7's I had before even the 1.1 205 I owned had a bigger cooling system?

[white_goodman]

Two I4s spring to mind (I owned both).

The 1.4 "Hi-Torque" engine in my second car, a mk3.5 Astra. I'm not sure what the "Hi-Torque" moniker referred to, more torque than power? Coming from a 1.1 (Cinquecento Sporting), as a naive youngster, I thought a 1.4 Astra would be a proper speed machine but it really wasn't. Gutless and got embarassed by my friend in his B-reg 1.1 Fiesta. Also, the only car that I have ever driven, which was faster in 4th than 5th gear!

Also, the 2.0 8v engine in my mk4 Golf GTi. It was a smart looking car with a nice interior ruined by a POS engine. Gutless, embarassing performance for that GTi badge (the Polo 1.4 TDI I had afterwards would have beaten it away from the lights easily), loud, used a lot of oil and thirsty. I averaged 20mpg in my 12 months of ownership! I genuinely believe that it didn't offer any advantage over the 1.6 Golf. Because of the fuel consumption, I would give this engine the nod over the 1.4 in the Astra, as at least the Astra was quite economical.

I guess being honest, the 1.3 in my mum's mk1 Ka was the worst thing about the car, not a nice thing but didn't ruin the car for me, as the chassis was so good. Likewise, the flat 4 in the Type 2 camper that I borrowed for the weekend was slow, loud and changing down gear just seemed to increase the noise rather than the acceleration but it had character, actually handled pretty well and wasn't as terrible on fuel as I envisaged, so didn't ruin the car for me.

[Halmyre]

vrooom said:

And i nomiate the engine that is in MX5 mk1. HORRIBLE coarse engine.. that screamed pain when you revved it.

My wife's had every iteration of the MX5; 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0 engines and they've all seemed 'talky' to me. I used to wonder what her 1.8 Mk2 would be like with my Alfa's 1.8 Twin-Spark (cries of 'unreliable' will be ignored!).

[daytona365]

Most of the 60's/70's Ferrari V12's. They do most things right, but they're far to thirsty & much to noisy. Imo anyway.

[Krikkit]

For the V8 should it not be the woefull BL V8 that was in the Triumph Stag?

[daytona365]

I had one once, great car ruined by like you say a woeful POS V8, despite what all the fawning owners now say.

[S0 What]

The I4, CVH was rather poor but the 1.8 in the sierra was better than the small block engines, not particulaly powerfull but quiet (er than the FWD versions)and bloody good on fuel and it was better than the Xflow, both were used in the Mk3 escort at the same time depending on trim.
TBH there are few truely awfull engines just lots that didn't take abuse and got noisy a large percentage of the time (IE the CVH) whereas the pinto and Xflow took it all day long and kept on rattling so ivote for the viva 1.2 OHV in the Mk1/2 astra, just as the Xflow/valencia it was well past it's sellby date and should have been dropped even it was only for povo spec they really tainted the who;e family.

The old corsa 3 pot 1.2 is truely horrable but so are most 3cyl offering from the late 90's like polos and dewoos.

The Essex was probably the worst V6 ever but not if you concider some french V6s, at least it was fairly robust if not that powerfull for it's size.

Worst V8, the rover ? no the stag V8, no the rover, no the stag, no the rover ect ect