shamino wrote:

Japanese engines are just as breakable as anybody else's. The reputation of Japanese being indestructible is a perception based […]
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Japanese engines are just as breakable as anybody else's. The reputation of Japanese being indestructible is a perception based on the group of people one hangs out with. A lot of people I know would say American pushrod V8s are indestructible. German fans would say German engines are indestructible. Each group would say the other is less reliable. Fanboyism runs thicker in the car world than anywhere else. In reality, everybody knows how to build an engine nowadays, and nobody is in the business of building things that are indestructible. They're all built to be as reliable as they need to be, and that's it.
I was amused when I was parked at a gas pump and a Honda owner engaged me in a group Honda backrub. She saw my old car and for some reason thought it was a Honda. It was actually a Pontiac.

The Prius is what, 5 years old? Any car that young will be in good condition, no matter how many miles a day it gets driven. If any model of car has a bad track record at 5 years, it would have to be one of the biggest lemons of all time.
Cars that get used in fleet service always rack up high mileage pretty easily, it's not the same as enduring the same mileage over the course of 20 years with private owners and less consistent operating and maintenance patterns.

Since they all have breakdowns, the key differentiator for me is how easy an engine is to maintain and service. To that end, I generally dislike modern cars, older cars are much easier.

^ more or less this ^^^ - but like I said, I like both german and japanese cars, I've owned both and my germans overlasted the japanese.

Scali wrote:

Nobody said anything about modifying/upgrading engines. The point was that most Japanese engines, when stock, will last very lon […]
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kanecvr wrote:

In any case, we could debate this all day and night - everyone has had different experience with their cars, but calling japanese engines bulletproof is an exaggeration. Yes, you can turbo a toyota supra to 1000hp, but after changing most of the engine's internals (pistons, rods, oil pump, rocker arms / tappets - etc) so much so that it's not really a toyota engine anymore. Same can be done with ANY other brand - that doesn't make them bulletproof.

Nobody said anything about modifying/upgrading engines.
The point was that most Japanese engines, when stock, will last very long without any trouble. That's because the Japanese are experts at precision-engineering. Even moreso than Germans are.
Take the Toyota Prius for example. Not only is it the most advanced hybrid system on the market (not just a regular engine and transmission with an electric engine for boost, but a specially developed Atkinson-cycle engine together with a special eCVT transmission), but over the years it has proven itself to be extremely reliable. They have been used a lot in taxi service, with 300.000+ kilometers on them, and still going strong. Even the batteries hold up very well.

The prius engine is pretty tough, but other toyotas are not as lucky. For example everyone I know who owns or used to own a corolla has had engine trouble in the first 3 years of owning the car. From sticky / stuck throttle body, bad ICV to premature ignition coil or intake manifold gasket failure causing vacuum leaks and horrible gas mileage. This covers both the older models (the E120 2002-2006 and some of the newer ones).

As I already said, there are exceptions to every rule. Sure, you can pick out single incidents, but on the whole, there are less such incidents with Japanese engines than with others. This despite the fact that Japanese engine technology is generally the most advanced/complex out there.
These are facts, TUV reports here: http://www.anusedcar.com/. End of discussion.

I don't know if the strangest thing in this discussion is scali using facts and not his whishes, or the fact the prius engine is qualified as advanced technology when its resilience comes from its simplicity.

edit :

Scali wrote:

I deal only in facts.

Oh my. I have now seen everything.

sunaiac wrote:

or the fact the prius engine is qualified as advanced technology when its resilience comes from its simplicity.

I gave two arguments why it is more advanced than other hybrids. I don't see you counter either argument.
I see a baseless 'simplicity' claim, which is easily defeated anyway, by simply pointing out that hybrids are never as simple as regular combustion engines, by definition.

TELVM wrote:

Scali wrote:

Except that Jap engines wouldn't throw the rods 😀

Tell that to McLaren F1 nowadays (2015) 🤣

"That's what Ferrari say every year!"

Classic!

I remember reading an article on a portuguese consumer rights magazine associating called DECO back in 2007 and they had conducted a year long (or more i don't remember) study about car manufacturers with serious maintenance and reliability problems across western europe. This was a large colaboration between other associations within the various european countries. I remember that on the top of the list the first 3 were:

1-Mazda
2-Toyota
3-Honda

I think Nissan was the worst Japanese manufacturer but still ahead of BMW and Mercedes. BMW was the best of the germans with Mercedes and Audi coming close. Volkswagen and brands from its group were below average and i also remember FIAT being on the bottom.

Of course this might not paint the whole picture, but IMO Japanese and German are the best. I do like Japanese cars and Toyotas have served my family with great reliability. My brother AE92 Corolla had one problem where the oil warning light wasn't working and he was apparently driving without oil for days. The engine never complained and survived to the mechanic surprise when he saw the oil reservoir empty.

BTW, has anyone heard of the legendary 2JZ-GTE engine? The RB26DETT?

Does anything of this makes any sense when car makers sells engines to another countries?

I mean, the Renault 14 was a Peugeot powered car; some Volvo petrol engines are manufactured by Renault, Nissan and Renault united to manufacture some vans... and so on. How does it fit the legendary japanese reputation when some diesel Nissan had Renault engines? What about Renault Twingo and Smart ForFour (they're more or less the same thing)?

Some years ago (and now, too), Citröen had a bad reputation about reliability... and their engines were the same that equipped Peugeot cars. Also, there are different reputations when talking about Seat, Skoda, Volkswagen and Audi... and they have the same platform and engines. What about that Porsche Cayenne diesel (I'm still reluctant to place "diesel" and "Porsche" in the same sentence). It seems affected with the Volskwagen TDi "feature".

Zup wrote:

Does anything of this makes any sense when car makers sells engines to another countries?

Well, I think in general you shouldn't lump all companies from a single country together.
In Japan however, all manufacturers are more or less comparable in terms of how they design and construct cars.
In the US it's much the same as well, since there are basically only 3 companies running all these brands, and these companies compete with eachother directly.

In Germany it's a very different story. Mercedes and BMW are in a totally different league than VW, Opel or Ford for example. Porsche is doing yet another thing.
The same goes for Italy. Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo share some technology and operate in similar markets. But then there's others like Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini... you get my drift 😀

Scali wrote:

sunaiac wrote:

or the fact the prius engine is qualified as advanced technology when its resilience comes from its simplicity.

I gave two arguments why it is more advanced than other hybrids. I don't see you counter either argument.
I see a baseless 'simplicity' claim, which is easily defeated anyway, by simply pointing out that hybrids are never as simple as regular combustion engines, by definition.

It's not more advanced, it's simpler.

If you can't see how an engine based on a basic atkinson cycle, whitout clutch, without timing belt, without gearbox, without need to go at high RPM, is simpler than any other standard engine of nowadays, there's nothing I can do for you. Not that I would care. And it's not baseless, it's facts, things apparently you deal in from now on. Oh, and I've been driving a toyota hybrid for 3 years, have you at least watch under the hood of one ?

That's this simplicity that makes it very good. Like the best code being usually the shortest. Toyota has found the best, simplest way of doing it. Instead of adding complexity to already complex engines, they stripped everything and went for the essential. It's not easy, it's awesome, but the result is by no means a super complex engine.

I think honda's S2000 engine would have proven your point better actually.

sunaiac wrote:

If you can't see how an engine based on a basic atkinson cycle, whitout clutch, without timing belt, without gearbox, without need to go at high RPM, is simpler than any other standard engine of nowadays, there's nothing I can do for you.

Erm... the point is that it's not off-the-shelf, proven technology, but newly developed. They put in the extra effort and took all the risks to develop a special type of engine and a special type of transmission to get the best out of both engines. And they got it right the first time, because that's just how high their quality and engineering standards are.

Most other hybrids are little more than standard engines and transmissions with an oversized starter motor bolted on, which can add extra boost. This is much simpler and much lower risk than redesigning the entire engine+drivetrain. If you don't understand that, there's nothing I can do for you.

Also, if you think you're so smart, you should know that the Atkinson-cycle approach has some extra difficulties that normal engines do not have:
1) It needs special valve timing to 'overlap', so that it can vary compression rate between strokes (it's not a 'true' Atkinson cycle engine, it uses traditional crankshafts).
2) It runs on a very lean mixture, increasing the temperature.

Both can severely reduce the reliability of the engine if it is not done right.
And then there was the case of using battery packs in a car. The Prius was the first modern hybrid, and the battery technology was not proven yet in practice.
So a lot of people were skeptic about reliability, but Toyota got it right the first time, and they prove to be very reliable. Which means they're well ahead of all other manufacturers, who took the less risky approach, which is less efficient, and generally less reliable as well.

Anyway, I was talking about the process of development being 'simpler' for other manufacturers. Not the end product (should have been obvious).
The end product of Toyota is more advanced, and at the same time, simpler in terms of mechanical components. But not so much simpler in building a reliable version of it.

sunaiac wrote:

Like the best code being usually the shortest.

Depending on what you mean by 'best', it usually isn't.

Ah, now we're talking ease of development and not reasons for resilience and fiability of the thing.
Goal posts have moved, usual scali style. How surprising.

edit : oh yes, one valve has to be opened a bit longer, such a hard thing to do. Kudos for this very advanced tech. Japanese precision.
edit 2 : aaand edited again. Well, that sure makes the conversation easier to follow...

sunaiac wrote:

Ah, now we're talking ease of development and not reasons for resilience and fiability of the thing.
Goal posts have moved, usual scali style. How surprising.

I didn't move any goal posts.
I said this:

Take the Toyota Prius for example. Not only is it the most advanced hybrid system on the market (not just a regular engine and transmission with an electric engine for boost, but a specially developed Atkinson-cycle engine together with a special eCVT transmission), but over the years it has proven itself to be extremely reliable.

Where I point out that Toyota went for an advanced redesign (so that covers 'ease of development'), and point out that it proved to be very reliable, despite the risk of such an advanced redesign.
No different from what I said elsewhere.
You brought up mechanical simplicity. I didn't mention that ('advanced' does not imply 'complex', such as how transistors are more advanced technology than valves, but their inner workings are simpler and more reliable).

But you didn't comment on anything in detail, just threw more personal insults around.

Cool it down guys. I'm getting sick of the daily reported posts and people running heated efforts to aggressively prove whatever is hot today. On a forum about old games and computers. If you want to push buttons, please just don't post.

This thread is done at any rate.