On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 17:24:54 -0600, Steve > wrote:

>Stan Kasperski wrote:
>
>> Steve wrote:
>>
>>> Lawrence Glickman wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 15 Feb 2005 10:59:32 -0800, wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Piston slap is rare.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It seems to be the rule rather than the exception on GM vehicles.
>>>> do visit www.pistonslap.com for all the sordid details.
>>>>
>>>> Including the lawsuits against GM,
>>>> and the LAME TSB's from GM that state adding 4 quarts of oil ever 700
>>>> miles is *normal*
>>>>
>>>> I'll keep my FORD, thanks anyhow.
>>>>
>>>
>>> To be fair, Ford had piston-slap and high oil consumption problems on
>>> the Modular v8 series *years* before GM had it. And for the same
>>> reasons- too hard to maintain the .002 max clearance tolerances needed
>>> by hypereutectic pistons in a mass-production environment. Ford is
>>> using coated pistons now, and have the problem down to the proverbial
>>> "dull roar" instead of the millions of screaming buyers that it was a
>>> few years ago.
>>
>> I have one of the very early modular engines (built 9/'91) in my '92
>> Grand Marquis. It is, by far, the quietest engine I have ever owned.
>> When I bought it with 113k miles, it did consume oil, but after
>> replacing the valve stem seals, it doesn't consume noticeable oil even
>> now at 213k miles. Dual exhaust, no noise, no vibration, no piston
>> slap, merely very smooth.
>> Stan K.
>
>People just do NOT understand production tolerance problems, it seems.
>Of course, many THOUSANDS of them ran perfectly! The problem was that an
>unacceptably large percentage of them were assembled out-of-tolerance,
>and had piston slap and/or swilled a quart of oil every 600 miles. The
>fact that thousands of others run over 200,000 miles without a hiccup
>doesn't mean that the problem didn't exist! It just means that its a
>PRODUCTION problem, not an inherent DESIGN problem.

And there is also something called a "Friday Car." The day of the
week it was assembled used to matter before robots came along to do
all the work. Now I think humans do a minimal amount of assembly,
like attaching wiring harnesses, _maybe_, otherwise everything has
been automated on the assembly lines. So there should be NO
production anomalies at _all_. Every car should be exactly the same
as the one before it and the one after it.

Lg