It is a '91, one of the last of the non-turbo cars. Castrol 5w40 Syntec, Mann oil filter, every 10k miles. It had a valve-job at 246k, mainly due to the head gasket starting to seep a little oil at the front of the engine. It started getting a LOT of blowby rather suddenly at around 430k miles, shortly after I ran it up to 95 for the first time ever (I
really had to poop, and was still about 5 miles from home
). It started spitting the dipstick out from excess crankcase pressure, then a couple times on the highway I had a couple 1-second runaways, so I decided it was time to tear it down.
I found minimal piston wear, cylinder walls still clean and crosshatches present everywhere except some minor shiney spots near the top where the rings stop. A light hone cleaned that up, the rings themselves were pretty worn, and 2 rings came out in 2 pieces.
Still, 437k miles is not too shabby for a 52hp engine that spins nearly as fast in 5th on the highway as a TDI does in 3rd gear.
I suspect many earlier cars had bore wear issues from people cranking the timing way advanced to squeeze more power out of them, not sure. I rebuilt an '86 engine that had some, but both my '81s and my '82 just needed rings. I recently had an '82 in here, with an early '81 engine in it, that had severe bore wear, even had a huge lip at the top.
