One Thing that is Killing Your Engine: Why Modern Cars Are Blowing Up Early

Scotty Kilmer explains low-speed pre-ignition in modern cars, its causes, effects, and how using the correct oil can prevent engine damage.

Key Takeaways

Low-speed pre-ignition is a hidden but destructive problem in modern turbocharged GDI engines.
Proper oil type and timely oil changes are essential to prevent engine damage from LPI.
Hybrids are less prone to LPI due to electric motor assistance at low speeds.
Older engines were more robust and less susceptible to LPI due to simpler design.
Turbo boost timing affects LPI risk; early boost at low RPMs increases the problem.

What the video covers

Low-speed pre-ignition (LPI) is a serious issue in modern turbocharged, gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines causing premature engine damage.
LPI causes fuel to ignite too early under low speed and high load, damaging pistons, rods, and bearings.
Older cars without GDI or turbochargers did not experience LPI as they had simpler engines and lower compression.
Modern small engines with GDI and turbos, especially in brands like Volkswagen and Toyota, are more susceptible to LPI.
Toyota Tundra V6 twin-turbo engines without hybrid systems are being recalled due to LPI-related failures, unlike their hybrid counterparts.
Using the correct oil rating such as GF6 or GF7 is critical to prevent LPI and protect modern engines.
Hybrids benefit from electric motor boost at low speeds, reducing stress on gasoline engines and lowering LPI risk.
Changing oil every 5,000 miles is recommended unless mostly highway driving is done, then 10,000 miles may be acceptable.
Using incorrect or thick oil can worsen LPI by delaying lubrication and increasing engine wear.
Modern engines have tighter tolerances requiring lighter oils to ensure proper lubrication and longevity.

Chapters

What is low-speed pre-ignition and why is it harmful?

Low-speed pre-ignition (LPI) occurs when fuel ignites prematurely at low speeds and high loads, causing severe engine damage such as cracked pistons and bent rods.

How can I prevent low-speed pre-ignition in my modern car?

Using the correct oil rating like GF6 or GF7 and changing oil regularly (every 5,000 miles or as recommended) helps prevent LPI by ensuring proper lubrication and reducing carbon buildup.

Why are hybrid engines less affected by low-speed pre-ignition?

Hybrids use electric motor boost at low speeds, reducing stress on the gasoline engine and preventing the conditions that cause LPI, such as high load at low RPMs.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

Today, I'm going to tell you about one of the worst things that can happen to a modern car and how you can prevent it from happening in the first place. It's called low-speed pre-ignition. It can destroy your engines. And many modern cars can have this problem if you don't treat your car right. Now, low-speed pre-ignition didn't happen on the older cars.

Speaker A

LPI, low-speed pre-ignition. What happens is at lower speeds and higher loads, many modern cars will explode the gas before they're supposed to, which can seriously damage the pistons. It can even crack the pistons, bend piston rods. Now, old

Speaker A

cars didn't have that problem because old cars like this 25-year-old Lexus had a V6 engine. They did not have gasoline direct injection. They didn't have turbochargers.

Speaker A

So they could take a load at lower speed. You could punch it. It takes off with no problems at all. But modern cars like this 26 Camry have GDI fuel injectors. This has GDI and port. It's a hybrid. It's a better system, right? But

Speaker A

many of them have a small engine like a 1.5 L. It's turbocharged. It has GDI.

Speaker A

There's all this pressure inside the engine. And in cars like Volkswagens, they're notorious for having low-speed pre-ignition because the GDI builds up debris in the engine. So, it increases the pressure because the built-up carbon takes up space, increasing the

Speaker A

compression. They have GDI, they have turbos. All that pressure causes the fuel to ignite before it's supposed to.

Speaker A

So, the piston rings are still going up. They haven't reached their top part, but the fuel fires too soon, jams it down, and it really can destroy your engine over time, and it doesn't take hundreds of thousands of miles to do it. It can

Speaker A

do it in a relatively short period of time. Now, low-speed pre-ignition is a big problem in modern cars. That's why they made oil better than they used to.

Speaker A

A few years back, they came up with the GF6 oil to help stop that. And now they have a GF7 oil. It's a rating. It's not a particular type of oil. Many companies can make it. But if your car is made for

Speaker A

that oil, don't go buy cheap oil and put it in a car. You want to use the right oil. And that means that a type of oil like this old Castrol GTX can I have here, believe it or not, that's

Speaker A

cardboard. It has SFSE rating, but that was for cars in the 1980s. Like I said, they came out with GF6 to help solve that problem. Now they have GF7 that's even better to solve the problem. And in the case of my hybrid Camry, it uses a

Speaker A

Japanese rating which is JO GLV1 because it's an extremely light oil. You can see it's 0W8. Now, there's a lot of reasons they're using in this Toyota.

Speaker A

It's a hybrid. Now, this particular hybrid does not really have problems with low-speed pre-ignition because when you're going slow and you take off, it's got the electric motor and the big battery in the back seat that gives it a

Speaker A

lot of boost. So, you're not stressing the gasoline engine at a low speed to give a lot of power because you're getting a ton of that power from the electric motor boost. That's where hybrids can actually have engines that

Speaker A

last longer. And that's an interesting fact, especially when you think about Toyota and all the engine problems they're having with their Tundras with the V6 twin-turbo engines. I believe it's a pre-ignition problem. It has low-speed pre-ignition. It's straining

Speaker A

it and it's ruining the bearings on the bottom of the engine because the Toyota Tundras, both the hybrid and the non-hybrid, have the same engine made in the same factory. But the non-hybrid engine has a higher turbocharge boosting. It's got

Speaker A

two turbochargers. They boost it at lower RPMs, baby. Where the hybrid Tundra twin turbo, but it's hybrid. The turbos boost it at a higher RPM.

Speaker A

Toyota's not talking about this, but interesting enough, they're recalling almost all of the Toyota Tundra V6 twin turbos that don't have a hybrid system, but they're not recalling any of the hybrid systems. And the only difference is when that turbo boost comes in,

Speaker A

they're the same exact engines built in the same exact factory, right? But the hybrid version when it gets boost the turbocharged boost at higher RPMs. Hence low-speed pre-ignition isn't a problem because you're not going at lower speeds.

Speaker A

You're going at a higher speed. The engine spinning faster. The Toyota Tundra hybrid, just like my Camry hybrid, is adding a lot of low-end boost with the electric motor and with the electric battery, the back seat. So, [laughter] that kind of explains two

Speaker A

things here, right? That if you're going to have a turbocharged car, you don't want to have the boost come in too early. But, of course, they all want acceleration for taking off.

Speaker A

And of course, size has something to do with it, too. This is a nice big 2.5 L 4-cylinder engine hooked up to a hybrid system.

Speaker A

It doesn't have a turbocharger. The electric motor gives a lot of power. You don't need a turbocharger, right? You contrast that to say a 1.5 or some of them even 1.3 little bitty engines. Some are four-cylinder, some are three that

Speaker A

have GDI, a lot of pressure. Turbochargers, even more pressure. They are really susceptible to low-speed pre-ignition that can destroy your engine. I use the right oil. I mean, look at my 25-year-old Lexus. What does it say? 5W30, right? No problem. I

Speaker A

change the oil every 5,000 miles. It's not 25 years old. Doesn't burn oil, right? Simpler engines. They could use dirty oil longer. It wouldn't hurt as much. It's a V6 engine. It's already got tons of torque on its own.

Speaker A

It doesn't need a turbocharger. It doesn't need GDI, right? But of course, it's somewhat of a gas hog. It's okay on the highway, but in town, it's pretty much a gas hog. It's going to get in the teens in stop-and-go city traffic. And

Speaker A

they're so into getting gas mileage, they're making the engines smaller and smaller and boosting them more and more at lower and lower RPMs, and that creates low-speed pre-ignition that then destroys your engine. So, it's even more important than ever to use the correct

Speaker A

oil for your car. Do a little research, right? Some European cars, they have certain specifications that are a little different than ours. If you got a European car, especially if you got a gray market one, you import it in the

Speaker A

United States. If you don't have a fancy European car, you might try this motor milk. Check it out on the back. It's more important now than ever that you use the correct oil for your car. And I don't care what anybody says, change it

Speaker A

every 5,000 miles. You know, unless you do nothing but highway driving. You could change it every 10,000 miles. If you do nothing but highway driving and you know you put 10,000 miles on the car in two or three months, you could change

Speaker A

it every 10. I had a guy who did that with a Toyota RAV4 plug-in hybrid. He's got 330,000 miles. It doesn't burn oil and he changed the oil every 10,000 miles, but he does all kinds of highway

Speaker A

driving. And forget things like oil treatments to help it out. You just need to use the right oil for your car because no one has any idea what happens. You mix some additive to a certain oil. Who knows what kind of

Speaker A

interactions it's going to have. The oil today, especially the newest one, the GF7, and it will say on the oil like that can I sold you that said GF6B, you know that's a GF6 oil, right? And of course, you want to use the oil that has

Speaker A

the correct viscosity because it's designed for that. If you put too heavy of an oil in, it won't flow as well. So, if you start the car up and you slam on the gas and you're tearing off, you got

Speaker A

an even better chance to have low-speed pre-ignition with bare metal running before the oil makes it up to the cams and starts lubricating them because you put too thick of an oil in the engine.

Speaker A

Now, sure, car engines, a lot of it's the same four-stroke internal combustion engines but the specifications inside are getting tighter and tighter tolerances, and you must have a light enough oil to get into all the nooks and crannies as soon as

Speaker A

you start that car, or you'll...

Speaker A

you start that car, or you'll regret it. Because low-speed pre-ignition is one of the most serious problems with modern cars. That's why I see the engines having an early death. Of course, if it's a GM, they might blow up. They got

Speaker A

6,500 miles on them, right? But even Hond's that used to go 2 3 400,000 miles, I'm seeing them breaking 110,000 miles or less. And that's not what you want to get out of a car. You want something that's going to last as long

Speaker A

as it possibly can. Now, the manufacturers, of course, they're not really into that. They would love to sell you a 1.5 turbo or a 1.3 L turbo that makes it through the warranty period, but then later on it blows up

Speaker A

and you either got to buy another engine, buy another car, right? I'm here to help show you how to make your engine last the longest with a simple thing like using the correct oil. I mean, in a video I made a few weeks ago, you can't

Speaker A

trust these oil change places. You don't know what kind of oil they're putting in, right? of cars are getting more and more complex, meaning they cost more and more and more money to fix. And in the case of an engine like this, the Atinson

Speaker A

cycle 2.5 L Toyota engine, hardly anybody knows how to rebuild them. So when it's gone, it's pretty much the end of the car. So what you want to do is you want to prevent any damage to the engine by making sure you use the

Speaker A

correct oil. They all have labels on them. In the United States, it's law. learn what the labels mean and then use the correct one for your car and change it every 5,000 miles. That simple.

Speaker A

You're taking a complex thing that's got 8 billion loves of technology to make them more heat efficient and get better gas mileage and have more power and you're keeping that complex system going with a simple thing like using the right

Speaker A

oil in your engine to prevent low-speed pre-ignition cuz believe you me it will destroy your engine. And you see more and more modern engines, especially the American manufacturers, right? The engines blowing up before their time and Toyota having a problem with their twin

Speaker A

turbo V6 non-hybrid tundras that hey, a little bit of prevention. This is the time you really want to do that and not take a chance that you're going to have your engine go because when you're going slow and you step on the gas, it's

Speaker A

damaging the engine cuz the oil isn't doing its

Topics:low-speed pre-ignitionLPImodern car enginesturbocharged enginesgasoline direct injectionengine damageoil ratings GF6 GF7Scotty KilmerToyota Tundra engine issueshybrid engines

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