Starting to get very worried about when not if....

my engine will blow up and it's really starting to affect my enjoyment of the car. I've always been firmly in the drive it until you break it camp but each time I come on here there's another post about engines giving up the ghost for a variety of reasons and I can certainly think of better things to spend £10k on than a broken engine rebuild. My car is on 128k miles so now I'm thinking that prevention is better than cure so am keen to know what diagnostic or preventative measures could put my mind at rest with regard to the big killers. IMS - Never really worried about this and when my clutch was changed 18 months ago everything was inspected and given a clean bill of health. Bore score - I did fit a low temp stat but will have a borescope with the service next month. Crank bearings - check for swarf at oil change. Valve seats - ?? I'm sure there are more 'common' causes if anyone would like to add to the list. So it'll be in next month for its minor service where they can check the oil and perform a borescope but what other advice can anyone offer or at my mileage am I on borrowed time and I should just drive it over to Hartech?

The Porsche paranoia !!! I think we all suffer from it!! My car has done a shade under 90k. It's a 3.4 with lots of history and my approach is twice yearly oil change, visual check of filter and magnetic sump plug and an oil analysis done. At some point one of two things will happen. I'll either see some metal on the oil analysis and have to act or the clutch and brake pipes over gearbox will require doing and at either of those I'll ship it either to Hartech or strasse for rebuild work. It's a keeper and I'll just have to swallow the cost. If it's a weekend car and it's genuinely affecting your enjoyment of it I'd consider if you still want it. That isn't me been awful or funny just you want to 'enjoy' a toy

I'm going to start doing oil analysis now I'm rapidly accelerating to 150k. Best advice I can give is drive it daily, once up to temp, foot to the floor, in all gears, like your underpants are about to explode, go on holiday in it, use it at every opportunity, even taking junk to the skip, etc. This way, if it ever does need a rebuild you'll feel like you've at least had your monies worth out of it prior to that. I've done 55k in mine now and spent £10k on maintaining it. Works out at 18p/mile. Add a £10k rebuild on top of that and it's still only a measly 36p/mile. What's not to like?

Thanks both, I hope it is paranoia but I suppose an oil analysis will tell me if I should be worried or not. I do love it and in the three years I've had it I've done quite a bit to get it to where I want it but with a few other cars and cycling to work I only do about 3k miles a year so my man maths won't be too positive unfortunately.

I had an oil analysis done in spring. Nothing, like literally no metal particles so obviously either it's all worn so much there's nothing left or at the moment I'm relatively safe. I'll get another done this winter and see. I think this approach gives you a chance at least of a time scale to disaster and an opportunity to plan. Of course it's not guaranteed or fail safe but what, in motoring is!?! Tits and tyres, they both bleed you dry!

...tis a conundrum that's for sure; main issue being that when they let go it's bloody expensive to repair ! Oh and other than bore score the other big ticket failures are difficult to predict... Leaving us back at the position of; buy one and take your chances mindful of the potential kidney sale if it shits itself ; buy one and maintain a £10k slush fund or buy one that has been rebuilt... The typical and traditional virtues of buying on provenance and condition seem to offer little comfort on the engine durability front, sadly.

True.

Excellent advice that man. The BMW 640d I've just chopped in cost me 50p/mile 😯

Everything with wheels costs money! I have a Vito v6 for my work. I barely do 25mpg and I've just ordered a prop for it at £1k !?! It's only money, you can't take it with you. No pockets in shrouds and all that!

You should try owning an aeroplane - that's where the real heartache of low use and high bills really makes you think carefully about ownership. I share mine with a few co-owners and if it wasn't for being able to split the bills, it would have bankrupted me by now.

Have you joined the mile high club?

Reading your post I'm not sure how many of the 128K mikes you've done ? At 3K a year you could achieve another few years out of it, monitoring oil samples and conducting as much preventative maintenance as possible, selling it would achieve what ? And the replacement is also an unknown, I can't drive mine every day due to work and there's no way I'd go to the tip in it, when I go to the tip I fill a trailer and what I could get in a 911 would go in a wheelie bin, I don't go shopping ever so the only time mines being used is weekend jaunts into the Peaks or across to the Lincs wolds, If I get 125K out of mine I'd be over the moon to be honest, but if lets go Tmrw it would be re built so that moving forward I'd know the exact history and the benefit of having a re built engine to settle the nerves for another few years, at the end of the day it's a car, and whilst it's always at the forefront of our thoughts it's only important when it's costing money. Service items can be factored in to a greater extent but sudden and costly failures will always be the unknown that is the deciding factor in whether or not the enjoyment worthwhile.

I'm coming up to 3 years of ownership so Ive only put about 9k of the total miles. I know nothing lasts forever and cars always need work, I've got 5 other cars so I really know that but £10k will be quite a hit if it does go. You're right though as after that you'll then have a sorted engine for another 100k. I suppose everything is relative though and I've reminded myself that I looked at a Lamborghini Gallardo a few months ago, now things really could get pricey with those!

Get oil analysis done each change. You'll see evidence of copper wear before your bearings give up. Mine's on 120k and no issues - been tracking it continuously over my ownership. Very occasionally i do worry, about 2 minutes per month when I've not run it for a couple weeks. But then i just drive it and enjoy it. As it is, I'll sell it when i see something better that i can afford, or I'll drive it until it blows up and even if i get 5k for it in that state, I've still lost less in depreciation than on a modern BMW etc and got to enjoy a 911 these last few years.

Yes that makes a lot of sense. As for the oil analysis, how do people do it. Is it something my Indy will do or should I send a sample of somewhere? A quick google shows home kits but are these any good?