Why do diesel engines seem to outlast gasoline engines? Shouldn’t they be built with the same stress safety factors built in and fail at around the same rate?

Question

Edit: Specifically referring to passenger vehicles and consumer trucks, not commercial vehicles that i assume would be built to go much longer anyway.

In: Technology

Answer 1

I worked with British Austin and Morris cars when I started in the auto industry in the 1960’s. The 1500cc “B Series” engines were worn out at 50-60k miles. Bore was elliptical, Timing chains, rod bearings, main bearings EVERYTHING had to be bored, ground, resurfaced etc. Datsun (now known as Nissan) licensed the design and I became familiar with it again in the 1970’s usually in their 620 model pickup.
It now ran to well over 200k miles with nothing but oil changes.
IMHO it’s all in material quality.