[s-cars] RE: Ate a rod bearing: part 2

[Michael Bess]

In my case, the S6 has 93,000 miles.  I've had it from 28,000 on.  I do have
the MTM 1+ since about 45,000 miles.  I don't use synthetic oil and the oil
changes come, on average, at 4500 miles.  Oil consumption has always been
nil between changes.  If crud due to some other internal work not being
properly performed clogged up the oiling system prior to my ownership, that
may have been the significant contributing factor, as might the fact that I
blew out the oil sensor on the back of the head about 15,000 miles ago and
puked almost all my oil out (although I thought I had shut the engine down
quickly enough and no problems were noted after the event). 

Michael Bess
Project Manager-Die Casting
International Zinc Association


-----Original Message-----
From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com
[mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of Calvin & Diana Craig
Sent: Saturday, June 12, 2004 12:04 PM
To: Emre Washburn; chris chambers
Cc: Scar
Subject: RE: [s-cars] RE: Ate a rod bearing: part 2

I wonder why the relative rash of rod bearing failures recently?  There are
about 4 possibilities I can think of:

1) At a certain mileage (is everybody at the same area of mileage with
these) some of the engines just fail a rod bearing because of fatigue.
2) The extra HP people are developing over stock is putting extra torture on
the rod bearing surfaces over time (is everybody failing rods chipped or
RS2'd?)
3) There is a piece of the oiling system that fails in a peculiar manner on
some cars?
4) Each of these had some previous work done inside the engine other than
normal T-Belts and valve cover gaskets, etc. and things were not
re-assembled properly, i.e. not clean.

I just think I have heard of about 4 people recently talking of this and
that seems like a high percentage given the number of owners on the
list...of course maybe this is going to become more normal as these cars
aren't getting any younger.  What do you guys think?

--Calvin