Most reliable vehicle engines: Volkswagen’s ALH TDI

Key Takeaways

what do you think about when you think about reliable engines a lot of you will probably think about toyota's engine lineup especially their 90s camrys and corollas which are known to be quite indestructible this guy on youtube literally drained his 90s camry of any oil at all and then drove it to get an oil change it's a pretty fun video i'll link it down below a lot of you will probably also think about honda and their engine lineup especially their 4-cylinder k-series motors which are super common nowadays and also their j series v6 motors which are surprisingly reliable this honda accord went over 700 000 miles on its original v6 motor and some of you might think of an old farm truck like the cummins that is found in older 90s dodge trucks that one is known to be especially reliable well either way when speaking on reliability you never really hear many people mention volkswagen motors in specific now that's not to say volkswagen vehicles can't be reliable i mean look at the title of this video but volkswagen doesn't really have the best reputation for reliability in fact my own mark vi gti has a surprisingly long laundry list of items that should be taken care of if you want the car to live a long and happy life in fact i actually made a whole video about it i'll link it down below and on top of my own experience if you look at reliability scores by brand sure the lists vary with which manufacturer is in which place but most of the time out of the top 20 manufacturers volkswagen doesn't show up on the list at all somehow showing up behind companies like ford and jeep in terms of unexpected repairs however volkswagen did have one of the most overlooked lineup of motors that will outlast even some of the fiercest of their competition and you could still buy vehicles with these motors in them today albeit they're a little bit old now this is a volkswagen's tdi lineup from the late 90s into the early 2000s i'm sure this is not news for a lot of you volkswagen enthusiasts out there but for those of you who don't know these motors are known to be bulletproof specifically a lot of these engines are referred to as the alh engine which i've talked about on this channel before because i actually bought a car with one but there are other famous tdi engines as well which are very similar like the bew nowadays most people remember volkswagen's tdi engines from dieselgate where vw cheated the emissions on their diesel vehicles to perform well on emissions testing but pollute much more while under normal driving conditions but these engines we're talking about today were released before the dieselgate scandal and back then diesel emissions were not so strict which really helps with reliability on a diesel now for volkswagen these late 90s and early 2000s diesels were some of the best motors that volkswagen had ever produced as i keep saying these motors have been proven to stand the test of time and even further than that these vehicles are known to easily reach mileage of over three hundred thousand if not four hundred thousand easily and it is really not that uncommon to see vehicles touch five hundred thousand six hundred thousand miles but the reason you won't see many 500 plus thousand mile tdi's on facebook marketplace is because the very car that surrounds the engine disintegrates before the engine dies if you know anything about mark iv volkswagens well the rocker panels and fenders like to rust out a little bit but on top of this reliability the tdi motor can reach upwards of 40 to 50 miles to the gallon easily but of course you do have to put diesel in them which is technically yes more expensive than just regular gasoline but if you do the math that 40 to 50 miles to the gallon makes up for it and overall it is better gas mileage but it also turns out that the fact that these motors are diesel is a huge part of what makes them so reliable on average a similarly spec diesel motor is much more reliable than a gas motor that's why electric trains use diesel generators in fact most electric generators are diesel generators another factor in reliability is the fact that diesels do not typically rev as high as gasoline engines with the alh and bew tdi motors only reaching around 5000 rpm max which is actually quite a lot for diesels most diesels don't go above 3500 rpm but since there aren't as many revolutions per second there is less wear on the motor over its lifespan comparing a diesel and a gasoline motor diesels actually make more torque on average so the internals of diesel engines are typically beefed up a little bit with thicker stronger components to survive that extra torque and these thicker components typically add to the reliability on average diesels also run cooler than gasoline engines so they experience less heat stress and the reason they actually run cooler is because they are more efficient which is also the reason they get better gas mileage but sometimes just being a diesel isn't enough to guarantee reliability so what are the other factors that make these late 90s to early 2000s volkswagen diesels so reliable well keeping these engines running well is pretty inexpensive they basically only need oil changes and regular timing belt services just like any motor in fact when i got my tdi i could tell that it had never been serviced with 280 000 miles but despite all this it was running pretty well with no check engine light all it had was a few fuel system leaks and a clogged up egr which i took care of by replacing the leaks with a 20 gasket kit and replacing the egr system with a pipe for 30 bucks and i also did an oil change but other than that the car is running pretty well now these motors are also extremely simple the fuel system is just a singular pump that just sucks the fuel right out of the tank and is driven by the motor itself so if the motor is running the fuel pump is just pumping diesel right into it it's also only an eight valve motor and it's got a pretty simple turbo system that is shown to be pretty reliable with their turbos being made by garrett and speaking of turbos do these motors have anything to offer in the performance department well the answer is yes but maybe not as much as their gasoline counterparts but if you're into diesels then you might actually like these motors better [Music] now listen stock these motors are really slow we're talking about 90 horsepower and 155 pound-feet of torque and we timed our 0-60 at about 12 seconds so yeah stock there pretty slow but changing nothing physically about the engine or the car and just adding a stage 1 tune you can gain 20 wheel horsepower and 33 foot-pounds of torque for 110 wheel horsepower and 188 foot-pounds of torque which is quite good and you will definitely notice that especially starting out with only 90 horsepower now just adding ejectors you can move up to 122 wheel horsepower into 228 foot-pounds of torque and you will definitely feel that 230 foot-pounds of torque on the road so much so that you might need a new clutch and if you go big enough on the injectors you can actually get up to 134 wheel horsepower and 235 foot-pounds of torque now if you want to go all the way and swap the turbo along with the injectors and get a new map sensor you can make up to 153 wheel horsepower and 273 foot-pounds of torque i told you these diesels paint a lot of torque and beyond that there's tons and tons of mods that you can add out there and on stock internals people don't really recommend going above 200 horsepower because that is a lot of torque most people will say 200 horsepower really isn't a lot or 150 horsepower really isn't a lot but when you're making 250 to 300 foot pounds of torque believe me you will definitely feel that that's about how much torque my mark vi gti makes at stage 2 with stock turbo and it feels like a lot now the crazy upside to all of this is that people get good gas mileage at stage 3 or stage 2 or whatever they're at in fact their gas mileage is better than stock up to 55 miles to the gallon if they're not beating on it pretty shocking stuff and all of this with legendary reliability so at this point you might be thinking i want one of these i want to get one well they're definitely out there but most of them are pretty roughed up finding a clean one is going to be a challenge and you might need to fix one up a little bit as a lot of people drive these two 200 you know something thousand miles and then they get a leak or something and they decide they want to sell it on the upside they are very cheap ranging from about 2 000 to 3 500 with anywhere from 150 000 to 300 000 miles and like i said these motors can go 400 500 000 miles as long as you do proper maintenance and you check to make sure you don't have a bad motor before you buy the car now i will mention and you might have seen from this video they do kind of sound like tractors and diesels are also a little bit smelly and a little bit smoky but at the end of the day if you need a really cheap and reliable economic car you really can't go wrong with these earlier tdis and plus if you're into cars there are options to make them more powerful just make sure you do your research and make sure you find one that's not entirely rotted out or doesn't have a junk motor or transmission i would seriously recommend only buying manual transmission variants but yeah everyone i hope you enjoyed my video you know leave a like if you enjoyed the video and leave a comment if you have any suggestions but i am matt pierce or mark 6 matt and i will see you guys in another video thanks for watching goodbye [Music]