vw rebuilds 350,000 mile bug
 

Read in the news where VW's mexican plant rebuilt a 66 bug for a lady that works with cancer victims.
Does the air cooled engine,rings,and cylinders last that long?

I imagine it depends on care and usage. That seems a lot of miles though.

1970 Plymouth Duster
 

Kinda painful to relate but my wife had 3 siblings, two brothers and a sister a few years apart. Their Mother bought a Plymouth Duster in 1970 and drove it for a couple of years before giving it to the kids to drive as they became old enough. Well over the next 12 years the car passed from sibling to sibling with zero maintenance ever being done to the car, only an occasional tire when one blew out and brakes when they couldn't stand the noise any more but it never had an oil change or a car wash. It was finally put down with 260k miles.

You would have to be religious about oil changes, not drive over 40 MPH, and not fry the engine on hot days; in other words, expose it to an existence no VW bug has ever seen...

Old Slant-Six Plymouth Valiants and Dusters are cockroach tough...as long as they don't see any road salt...

Really remarkable for carbeurated engines and the engineering tolerances of the day. Most of the engines I can think that will handle similar mileage are diesels like the OM617 and vw 1.9 tdi.

Maybe the dreadful but long lasting GM 2.2 from the 90s and various Toyota 4bangers.

Not a hope in my mind. It is common to replace all the individual cylinders though. Actually if the crankcase where still in usable condition makes it not that big of a deal. Done at the factory they just would pull everything off the shelf if still in inventory. New engine and transaxle etc. There should be no chassis rust down there.

I never kept my air cooled bugs more than 50k so have no ideal of what milage could be accumulated on their engines on average. It really was not that great an issue back then though as repairs in general where relatively cheap. Actually in comparison to today unbelievably cheap. I remember on one trip an intermittent engine shut off developed. I dropped by a dealer. They diagnosed the problem that took a test drive to find. Repaired in and out the door for three dollars. As the block got hot the pushrod on the fuel pump stuck. As the block cooled down the pushrod started moving again.

You have to bear in mind that my last new bug was a 1965 though. Over time cheap repairs probably ended even on the bugs.

Looking back things have changed somewhat. I traded in my 1962 model with about fifty K in on a 1965 new one. It took a six hundred dollar cheque to do that. Think a depreciation rate of 200.00 a year. New cost was about 1,600.00 in Canada for them. An average years depreciation on a newer vehicle today is more than what a new bug cost when I was using them. Wolfsburg Wailers was an appropriate name given them as they were built in Wolfsburg Germany. The quality of build was excellent. They were also the easiest cars on tires I have ever owned. Partially perhaps because they came on high quality Continental tires usually right from the factory.

never knew much about the flat 4,I thought maybe cylinders could be removed easy,and rings installed.Don't know if they had steel liners,knew timing was gears.Wonder if new oils,and oil coolers would make them better know.

IIRC, Chrysler was more thoughtful from a metallurgy perspective in terms of the composition of the engine blocks/cylinder bores.

The bug motors were unit-replacement items back in the day. Never went over 100K miles.



My old Barracuda is still in the garage, I may treat myself to a drive this week.

I ought to try to borrow Ahnold's time machine and go back and order me a Barricuda with a Hemi. Wasn't all that expensive but not many people did it.

They languished on dealer lots all through the 70's. I vividly remember an orange Superbird sitting behind my local dealer, waiting for someone to snatch it up. Nobody wanted them because of the oil embargo.

Did they put it in cheat mode?

Air Cooled VW's
 

Dang ~

I just found this and they're closing up shop .

No, air cooled VW engines rarely last over 150,000 no matter how much you baby them .

OTOH, they're dead simple to overhaul / rebuild , esp.if you do it before they go !BANG! .