My 97 van that I have had for 2 weeks now has over 330K miles on the odometer. I am wondering how many miles is it common for these vans to go? It takes about 4 seconds to start the engine (I need to check the fuel regulator). No oil burn, no running problems and it even has alot of pep still left in the motor. As far as I know the engine is still original but the tranny was rebuilt last year.

 

It's pretty safe to assume that the engine has been rebuilt at least once. It's not likely that you could have 330K on any engine and not be burning oil or have starting problem due to low compression.

 

Is it that the Dodge engines do not or have not gone that far?

I personaly know of a 1997 Ford F-150 that has over 327k miles on it. The lady has owned it since new and the engine has never been touched. Does not burn oil and starts right up every time.

I also read on the Pensoil web site about 3 years ago that they had bought a chevy or GMC truck that had rolled a million miles. They sent the truck to an independent lab and had the engine pulled and torn down. The results was that the engine was still nearly factory new. The cylinder hone marks were still visible after that many miles.

 

I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that I could sell you too.

 

Here it is read for yourself: http://www.allbusiness.com/manufactu...5857818-1.html
And as I said I do know the owner of the Ford truck peronally and that engine has not been touched.

So how much for the bridge.

 

Is anyone else having trouble posting to this thread?

 

Yes, I did when I first tried to put in reply #2. The first night the system would not let me and I was able to retype it the next day. I had a message come up about some type of "system time out", for what its worth.

 

One line replies seem to work sometimes.

 

That reminds me of the one-liner jokes.

 

"The million-mile truck was then transported to Pennzoil-Quaker State Company's technology center for study."

That doesn't sound like an independent lab to me. Plus the truck was driven 800 miles a day and the oil changed every four days. That's not an everyday Joe type of driving environment. Think of all of the warm ups and cool downs that engine didn't experience, or the 3-6 months of the same oil sitting in the crankcase most of us deal with. Anything can be made to look good on an independent basis if the conditions are altered to allow for improvements like these.