Talk:Long-bolt engine

Rover K-Series -- unreliable?

"...gained a reputation as unreliable. This reputation was undeserved..."

I think there are rather a lot of 1.8 Freelander owners (or ex-owners, like myself) who would dispute this. There was a 'joke' going around the Landy forums that approximately 100% of 1.8 Freelanders would suffer a head gasket failure during their lives (can't remember the time period used) and many would require two or three. (It killed mine. And, yes, I am still bitter about it. Lost a lot of money over it.) It may have been less troublesome in other vehicles, but I think the MG had the same problems too.

Without wishing to make this into a forum entry, and now putting on my WP hat, the above 'quote' is currently unsupported by references and could be considered POVish maybe? -- EdJogg (talk) 12:15, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

The engine overall was pretty reliable. Some models of it were bad, and some features of it caused this unreliability. I'd hazard a guess that your Landie failed owing to a "plastic dowel headgasket" - but even then, that wasn't a fault with a plastic dowel failing. I've never known another engine where it had some recognised faults, but that these were so widely mis-reported under the wrong cause. Dowels weren't the fault - gaskets were (and the gaskets used in the plastic dowel models were the worst). One manufacturer's wet liners failed, the others didn't - yet it's forever reported that "the head gaskets failed because this was a wet liner engine and those are all bad" and that's as simplistically incorrect as Americans who blather on about interference engines. In particular here, there are no faults accruing to the use of the long-bolt design (if anything, the FIRE was worse). Nor is it really competent for a Landie to ever fail a second head gasket. At the time these were replaced, the fix for how to stop them ever failing again was well known and there's no excuse for putting them back together with an inadequate gasket, even if that's what the parts book said. After all, this is the engine from a racing Lotus - and it's not up to the job for a Landie?

A full diagnosis of all this belongs under the K engine, not here. The point here though is that even if the K has a terrible reputation, the engine (with the right parts) was sound and it certainly wasn't the through-bolt design that was the cause. If you want to change the wording to clarify that, then feel free. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:38, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the list of cars that used the K-series, the Freelander sticks out like a sore thumb! I was astonished when I first discovered it was used in the MG TF (which apparently suffered similar problems). Trying to find anything remotely usable as a reference is a nightmare -- "freelander head gasket problems" produced >300,000 ghits -- and a lot of people have lost a lot of money, so feelings run high! This page suggested the problem was costing Land Rover $6million/year in warranty claims, and they had >31000 claims in 1997-8. Other pages suggest the issue was that they were prone to overheating because they had a small coolant reserve tank, and a small leak could cause failure quite quickly. Mine had had a factory exchange engine before I bought it, then it failed twice (over 50-60000 miles?) the first time, thankfully, under warranty....

I still think that text needs adjusting, but I don't think I'm the person to do it! (I've mostly blocked the issue out of my mind, although the effect on the bank balance still reverberates. It's fresh on my mind as I've just sold the last extras I had from it.) -- EdJogg (talk) 19:56, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I've expanded it a little so it's hopefully clearer. I'm still not keen on having too much about it, because I think that belongs under the Rover K engine and the only point about even mentioning it here is to show that it's not especially relevant to the bolts. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:33, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Understand and agree completely. I've adjusted the wording a little more. Hope that's OK. EdJogg (talk) 17:51, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry but since when the FIRE engine is a long-bolt designs. Got one on my desk and ther are seperate bolts for main bearings and cylinder head.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.218.10.137 (talk) 20:44, 30 August 2011 (UTC)