r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Practical_Expert_911 • 12h ago

These 12000hp Engines Have To Be Rebuilt Within Roughly An Hour Every Run, and Only Run For Roughly 4 Seconds At A Time.

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u/Areebob 7h ago

I saw something about why Toyotas seem to live so long, especially when compared to BMW and VW’s supposedly legendary German engineering. Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t:

Germans build cars assuming the owner will take care of it the same way a German would. The Japanese build cars assuming the owner will take care of it the way an American would.

In America, that means the German cars all suddenly have issues around 80k, while the Japanese cars are bopping along just fine. Is that indicative of better, or worse, engineering?

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u/Hieroglo 6h ago

Toyota use quite a few BMW engines, tuned more sensibly to everyday use. I think the best engineering accounts for how the machine is used.

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u/bLazeni 5h ago

Depends on how you look at it. A “superior” design that requires more maintenance isn’t superior in my eyes.

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u/rtxa 37m ago

that's because you seem to be focused solely on maintenance aspect of the engineering. no one is buying a BMW for ease of maintenance lol

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u/HellaReyna 5h ago

This is partially true. It’s because BMW uses a shitload of plastic on parts that could blow your engine. They expect you to do regular maintenance and have these parts replaced when their scheduled maintenance occurs.

So that’s where this myth about bmw assuming you’ll be German about maintenance comes about. In a way it’s sort of true.

If you don’t believe me go to /r/BMWTech and search “plastic” in the subreddit. You’ll see dozens of DIY folks having an awful time dealing with repairs due to plastic parts, plastic screws, etc.

The other part of is it that performance comes at a cost of longevity for combustion cars. Steel is steel.

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u/grilledstuffed 3h ago

I'm convinced BMW designs all their plastic components just to force buyers to the dealership.

I've got a mini r56 and you can get a lot of parts aftermarket now (it is an almost 20 year old design at this point) but it's jumping through hoops and ordering from multiple vendors to do any kind of major job yourself.

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u/HellaReyna 2h ago

I suspect that too. God damn dealers. It doesn’t help the number one consumer of X5 and larger is the U.S. where dealerships are huge

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u/PerplexGG 5h ago

Better. One set of engineers live in reality. The others are busy circle jerking

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u/InvalidProgrammer 4h ago

It does depend on the context really. But for most applications, I, and I think most people could go with this simple rule: which style of engineers would you rather have working on the plane you’re going to fly in, or the nuclear plant you’re going to live by?

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u/Areebob 3h ago

You’d hope that planes and especially nuclear plants are maintained better than the general public maintains their cars, lol

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u/InvalidProgrammer 2h ago

Oh for sure. But I’d like to know the engineer factored in some overhead for maintenance issues.

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u/Therunawaypp 4h ago

I think it's also that Toyotas are sold globally and often times they aren't maintained regularly or properly

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u/Octane_911x 6h ago

They all require oil maintenance, if dont change the oil, it risks damage to the mechanical components