Equinox / Terrain 2.4L ECOTEC Blown Motor Teardown! What Happens When You Run These Low On Oil? 

Is a shot in the dark, but a 1.0 Ecoboost would be awesome to see. They are such an odd engine, and is hard to find videos of people testing them down.

Can you imagine the incredible symphony this thing made when it jumped time

That is, without a doubt, the most top end damage of any engine you've disassembled. 16-for-16, clean sweep.

i love that satisfying sound of the head bolts breaking free

I replaced so many of these engines when I was a mechanic. I refused to warranty the engine after it left the shop because of all of the problems they had. The non-DI 2.4 was a pretty good engine, except for the cam solenoids being stupid, but at least they are cheap and easy to replace. If you update the hydraulic timing chain tensioner in the older engines that had timing chain problems, they will run forever. Still have the original engine in my 2003 Saturn L200 and at 230k miles, never have had issues with it after replacing the tensioner. Its amazing how much you learn about EcoTEC engines when you work on them for 15 years!

I had an EcoTec that went 250k miles before I sold it. I bought it with 16k miles. They can be reliable if you change the oil.

We need a Fiat 1.4T multiair from an Abarth or 500L. Keep up the good work.

I’d love to see him crack an old Quad-4 motor.

A very nonchalant "That didn't sound good". Eric....you are the master of understatement. Thanks for the great Saturday nights.

One of the best parts of Saturday!

Me watching this knowing, “If you take care of your car it will take care of you”. I have a 2010 Chevy cobalt lt with the 2.2 vvt LAP which is a similar engine. I change my oil every 3000 miles and have replaced the timing chain tensioner. I have 160,000 miles on my car and no issues.

My grandpa has a Malibu with this motor and is still trucking at 220k miles original everything.

My father has a awd 2013 equinox with the 2.4 ecotec engine it has 200k miles and still on the original engine/trans

My favorite Saturday evening show!

Love these tear downs, I look forward to them every Sunday when I wake up. Keep it up man.

I caught that look back to the camera when you heard that first pop, I like that we are really enjoying this with you as you go!

I started at a GM dealer back in the 70s , as time goes on I am shocked at the quality that has gone down on most everything that GM has made, but your channel keep me informed and entertained. Keep up the good work.

I worked at a Dodge dealer as a line tech early in my career when a Dodge Sebring came in with 21,000 miles and had never had an oil change and eventually froze up the engine.

Thank you brother for give me something to watch on a boring Saturday night always enjoy your content

Another Saturday, another engine teardown, AWESOME. Keep it coming.

I totally enjoy your videos, I am so glad I no longer work on cars, the 1960 and 70's V8 were so easy, the wonderful invention was fuel injection, carbs were such a pain !

Love watching the strip downs of these engines as there’s loads we don’t get here in the UK, amazing how far some try and go before they eventually die. One that might be interesting is a Volkswagen VR6 (they’re in Audi and Porsche as well so there’s a few about) as they’re built pretty tough but also loads of quirky design features.

I love watching your teardowns.

Hey man, really quick. I wanted to catch a video as it dropped to hopefully get to tell you something. I appreciate your content. I like how you're just you. You seem pretty happy to be you and pretty genuine. That's nice to see. I love engines as well so I enjoy the content regardless, but I appreciate how you come across as just you in all your videos. It's very wholesome and I appreciate you.

If you do another notorious FWD GM engine after this one, could you teardown a Cadillac Northstar? The 2005 and up engines had larger head bolts and were more reliable. The 2000-2004 engines had longer head bolts than the 1999 and older ones, but same diameter and thread pitch. Though all versions had oil leak issues. Rear main seals and oil pan gaskets are fun....

Another great teardown.

We had a 2009 Malibu with a 2.4L port injected. We gave it to my brother, and now our niece has it. 220,000+ miles and running strong.

This has become one of my favorite channels on YT. And I just found out about it a week ago!!

Yooo I've been watching you for a bit! I work in St. Peters, didn't know you were right down the road! Keep up the great work :)

Another problem these engines can develop if oil changes are at all infrequent is to do with the PCV port in the intake. These engines do not have a PCV valve, the crankcase pressure is metered into the intake via a small hole in the intake that can become easily plugged with sludge if the engine is at all grimey inside. This will cause excessive crankcase pressure which will hinder the oil control rings ability to do their job, or cause seal leaks around the engine. They also like to crack exhaust manifolds, which becomes a pain as the exhaust manifold studs love to break in the heads, and if I had a nickel for every time a part of the timing chain guide did find its way into the oil pickup a would have several more nickels.

“Oh, it’s shooting parts everywhere…that’s fine”. And that ladies & gentlemen is what makes this channel such fun to watch!

As someone that has no experience with this engine I Will be working on a 15 equinox for oil burning issues thank you for these videos they do help out many.

It's easier to eliminate valve float if they never move, this is genius engine design!

Yup - when I saw the loose V.T. chain for this interference engine, I knew there was going to be some fun inside!

I have been driving for 50 years and I know the most important thing is to have enough oil in the engine. I'm a quiet aggressive driver and I do a lot of red line shifting but I have never had a engine failure with any of my cars, even I am surprised, but I have made sure that I always have the right oil level and after that it's the pedal to the metal.

My dad and I are replacing the head on a 2011 Regal and the carnage is pretty much the same! Watching your vids is the only reason I thought of that chain guide bolt behind the plug. I've learned A LOT from watching your vids and it has actually helped me recognize different parts of the engine that I wouldn't have thought to check/disassemble. So, thanks for the content and keep it up!

My uncle had a 2.4L Equinox, it burned a quart of oil every 800 miles (that means it would burn through it's entire oil capacity in 4000 miles, so you had to add oil regularly) but Chevrolet refused to replace the engine under warranty because it wasn't "excessive oil consumption"

Thank you for another great tear down. That was a lot of spare parts at the top of the motor. I guess if more prople checked there oil this would happen less.

Now this was my first view on your channel. Loved it! That engine must have been at max revs when it blew! I bet it made some interesting noises when it gave up!

This channel is awesome. I’ve been a hardcore gearhead for over 22 years now and I still learn new things here. Most importantly, REAL world results from neglect. I no longer will follow a manufacturer oil change interval over 5,000 miles. I will also pay extra care to keep intake valves clean on a direct injection vehicle (I just bought my first one a week ago) Thanks for the videos bro!

"pour out the rocker arms..." Classic.

This is my favorite chanel. Thanks for the awesome videos mate

That wonderful sound when you crack the head bolts and zip them out! What a great intro to a techno-pop song!

I had a '14 Equinox with this. Sold it at '81K miles with no issues except for a little timing chain slack upon cold start when it sat for several days in cold weather. I kind of miss it. It was fun to run the piss out of it time to time and watching it shift at 7K rpm.

FINALLY! A 2.4L Ecotec. I have a 2011 Terrain with this engine with over 200k miles on it. Yes, it does burn oil, but I have kept a close eye on it ever since I decided to check the oil when we were on a 400+ mile freeway trip and it barely touched the dipstick. Ever since then, I keep it topped up, change the full synthetic oil every 4k miles and it is still actually going pretty strong. I find that it burns about 1.5 to 2 quarts of oil between changes, so I can live with it for now. My wife loves the vehicle, with it's AWD for the winter and since the body and interior are still in really good shape, we plan to keep it at least until the engine lets go and then consider another, newer 2.4L to drop in it.

That’s wild. I grew up in east Alton. Good to see someone near there on RU-vid.

Old guy here, very satisfying watching your teardown analisises. When you get a minute, do some old classic engines, or get an under the wing person to do some teardowns on them. Pull a junk 283 or 440 and lets see. Just an idea.

My vehicle doesn't lose any oil between changes, but watching your vids has me checking oil every time I stop for gas.

I don't know that much about the 2.4 ecotechs but I have had 2 of the 2.2L and they have run flawlessly for 200k, one survived till 300k when my son killed it. Only issue with that one was an oil leak. I told him to check the oil weekly.. Did he listen... Nope.

Man I really like the way you do your videos man. Keep doing what your doing haven’t seen a bad video. And I wonder what this sounded like

Four or so minutes in and all I see is 'lol'. Love these videos and I'll watch every single one until you get too busy to make them. Highly anticipated everytime.

Brand new sub, love your videos. I work for a major auto parts store and know first hand how bad some engines burn oil. One customer’s car holds 4.5 quarts of oil and was 3 quarts low. They asked me about the horrible noises it was making, and I was honest. I thought the engine was ruined, it sounded slightly better when we put in the oil, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it made it a week after that. If people need to learn anything, check your oil level every time you get gas.

My 2010 equinox 2.4 at almost 400k, change oil every 5k, also did the GM recall.

I love the crack of head bolts in the evening! Great vid!

I love the sound of head bolts cracking in the morning... or afternoon... or evening... whenever.

I had a 14 equinox for a short time and last year, right at the start of our vacation, it decided it no longer wanted its timing chain. We only had 108,000 miles on it when the chain let loose, practically destroying the inside of the engine. The only choices we had were to rebuild the engine for $5,800, install a new engine for $7,200, or salvage the car and maybe get $400 back. We decided to rebuild the engine and then promptly got rid of the car as we did not want any other surprise repairs that would cost us an arm and a leg. I imagine that the inside of my engine probably looked very similar to the one you worked on here.

In all fairness to the owner, that car wasn't going to last very long anyways 🤣 My neighbor had one and it needed a new engine under warranty thankfully. He sold it after that and said he'd never buy another GM. My cousin had one that at least made it out of warranty, but yeah it installed an inspection hole in the side of the block 🤣

Your class is amazing. I gotta do my lifter and rockers tomorrow....

Your teardown video 's make my day

Yep I've seen one of these with all of the rockers smashed like that. These Direct Injection Ecotec's are a reliability nightmare everything from terrible oil consumption caused by clogged piston rings (why so many of these end up running out of oil), rear main seals literally blowing out due to PCV valves plugging up, timing chain related failures, constant exhaust manifold cracking, these engines EAT their cat converters (there was a recall on some of these for that) probably because of their oil consumption, VVT Solenoids going open circuit, VVT Phaser failures and so on. Doing timing chains on these is pretty much 2nd nature for me at this point. I will give these engines credit though, I've never seen an engine run as well as these on

Ohh fancy! As a former GM tech, we used to call them leak-o-techs :) Yes, they have become better, but the early ones 20 years ago, oh boy. And then imagine direct injection and maybe a bunch of boost and people that don't have time for pesky oil changes or warning lights.

You do find some very interesting engines ,never two the same.great video keep up the good work.

Thank you so much for showing these videos

My 2013 Equinox check engine light just came on. You would think after over 100 years,millions of engines, super computers and smart engineers they could build an engine that doesn't burn oil.

Nissan VC-Turbo engine!! Still kind of new so it might be hard to get your hands on one. Came in 2019+ Altima and the Infiniti QX50 Crossover.

Love to see these videos

Brings new meaning of off it's rocker.

Id love to see you tear down an Oldsmobile Quad4 engine just to compare that design to this one. They share alot of design similarities.

Been in a bunch of these engines, never seen one chuck almost every rocker before, that's impressive. What I will say though is IF you maintain them, check the oil now and then, they're decently reliable engines. Thing worth noting is, if you do run it low on oil, and it's about to jump time you do get a warning. You will hear the chain slapping that bridge guide. If you stop at that point you're just doing a timing chain, an expensive lesson but not nearly as bad as ignoring it and replacing an engine.

Man this is a great learning opportunity. Love it.

Don't know why I found that one so entertaining, but I did. Clean sweep on rockers!

Earlier Ecotecs were pretty decent engines but they became terrible when GM added direct injection. Many of these direct injected Ecotecs including this one are oil burners. If you run it low on oil habitually the main timing chain stretches and it will eventually stretch enough it jumps time and causes the failure seen in your engine. The loose chain slapping around can also break the chain guides. Yours had the plastic broken off that top guide between the cam actuators but that black plastic guide on the front also breaks all the time. You have to run one of these extremely low on oil to mess up the rod and main bearings. I've torn down many that were 3L low on oil and the bearings looked fine. Other common issues with these things are the pcv orifice in the intake manifold clogging up. After this happens if you live in a cold area in winter the pcv vent tube will freeze with condensation and cause the crankcase to build up excess pressure in it which often blows out the rear main seal and causes a massive oil leak. If the customer doesn't notice the leak this will quickly empty out the crankcase and kill the engine. High pressure fuel pumps often fail and leak gas into the crankcase. Other than that issue the rest of the direct injection stuff is reliable and rarely causes issues, Another problem is the camshaft actuator solenoids failing and causing check engine lights. If you own one of these engines already and want it to last only use full synthetic oil and check the level often. Also change the oil really regularly. If you have rattling from the front of the motor where the chains are get the chains and guides replaced. Don't ignore the noise. At idle there should be a slight vacuum in the crankcase that can be checked through the oil dipstick with a gauge. If there is not or if there's positive pressure the PCV orifice in the intake is clogged and needs to be cleaned out otherwise it's a time bomb that can blow the rear main seal.

I think a GM 3.5 LX9 (pre DOD) would be a good teardown. They're known for intake plenum gasket leaks, great power for their size, and outstanding reliability if taken care of. Early 2000's Malibu, minivans, and a few pontiacs used them.

Not sure if you already did one but a 7.3 power stroke would be cool to see torn down. I have 430k on my 2000 Ford and it's still going strong although it does burn a little oil. Legendary!

Love watching your videos. Thanks 👍

My wife had a 2012 equinox that we bought used. I cant remember if it was a 2.2l or 2.4l. Anyway the piston rings were defective from the factory, and it would just burn oil very quickly. We traded it in a few years ago when it hit 204,000 miles. We had to keep a jug of oil in the back at all times. Lol

I'd love to see a 3.6 FCA Pentastar, or the GM 3.8. The 3.8 is incredible.

I love watching these and I look forward to them each Saturday. If you have a chance to do a W11 out of a first gen Mini Cooper S (R53) I’d love to see it.

We kept ours full of oil (it was thirsty) and it still blew at 130k. The direct injector cut a lovely hole in one piston. It was pretty cool.

Have you ever had a 5 Cylinder from Volvo in your shop? Specifically the D5 is interesting since its a 5 Cylinder Diesel so an incedibly rare engine configuration thats worth a detailed look at. They are quite simple engines actually and known for a 500.000 Kilometer lifespan if properly taken care of.

I have been told that if an Ecotec timing chain is one tooth off, it is a catastrophe. I had a 2003 Saturn ION and my dad had a 2007 Pontiac G6 and we got a lot less out of our Ecotecs than we expected. Although we maintained our cars right, I had low compression on cylinder #3 at 130,000 miles, and my dad's suddenly started burning oil and coolant at 140,000 miles. Since neither of our cars were worth saving, I wanted to take them out with a Dukes Of Hazzard ending. 13:03 That cover exists to you can replace the water pump without removing the timing chain. The Quad4 also had a timing chain operated water pump, but the whole timing cover and chain drive had to come out to replace it. You do need a specialty tool to replace the Ecotec water pump without removing the chain, but it costs so little, it would be worth it for just one use. 14:00 I think the inherent imbalances of 4-cylinder engines are best corrected by having 2 shafts. That's why Mitsubishi had 2 shafts like that. It's also why many current engines have 2 shafts in the oil pump. 15:00 The oil fed timing tensioner got redesigned more than once to solve problems. 20:29 I like how the crank already has some knife edge to it. Usually when you want knife edging, you have to pay an automotive machinist to modify your cranks. 21:14 Many current engines have 2mm or 2.5mm rings. It takes very little sludge to make the useless. Also, pistons don't have many provisions to let oil drain back, increasing the problem. Some people drill extra holes in the oil ring grove if they rering a modern engine. 21:28 That is probably a 3mm oil ring.

Hey Eric, early subscriber since about 5k from down under and I always can't wait for your uploads every weekend. Would love to see you teardown a Volkswagen VR6 engine 😀

My ecotec started getting a tapping noise at start up so, I replaced the 1 timing tensioner on the back of the block. That helped for maybe a month or 2 so, I replaced all the timing components & a new oil pump/front cover just to be safe! Still runs good!!!

It's amazing what not doing routine maintenance does to an engine. 3 engines and all it would have taken would be to check the oil level.

Please do a Honda J-series V6 with direct injection. I’d love to see how Honda handles the excessive carbonization of the intake valves.

Thank you for the video, Eric!

I'd love to see a VW VR6 or W8 teardown. Thank you for the continued awesome content.

"We're just gonna take all the bolts out and see what happens." That should be the name of the channel.

Kinda looks like that engine was over rev'd and purposely destroyed. PS I retract my previous comment after your explanation of low oil pressure and the tensioner causing it to jump time. 👍

“First, let’s pour the rockers out of this thing.” I LOL’d.

Thanks for all the interesting and educational videos! It'd be cool to see an Audi engine torn down... I'm partial to the older 2.7t engines, but a modern one would be interesting too!

Is there any chance we can get a compilation of just you breaking bolts loose on like all of the last year's engines. Just a video of the most satisfying noise on RU-vid over and over? Please and thank you.

These are not so bad. Just keep oil in them and they run great. Especially later models

Dam, this makes the cadillac HT 4100 sound super reliable! My original engine in my 83 Eldorado has 145.000 miles and is still running well.

I have a 2008 Pontiac Solstice GXP with the 2.0l Ecotec. It's direct injected. At about 30k miles it was running weird. That's when I discovered the original design of the timing chain tensioners was redesigned due to early failure. Luckily I caught it before the valve timing slipped. The GM kits are two flavors: new chain, tensioner, guides, and bolts (because they're different due to the redesign); or the previous plus all the gears. It's also needed a new water pump and high pressure fuel pump (started spewing fuel). That's a lot of repairs for an under 40k miles vehicle. I've gone another 25k miles since the repairs with no problems. But she's not my daily driver and I watch the fluids and do regular maintenance with high-grade fluids & filter. I've got a cold air kit and a 3rd party tune, engine is super smooth with power to redline. I do get on it, and I suspect I'll get many years of joy now that the major repairs are out of the way.

Having owned an Equinox new there isn't much you can do to prevent the high oil consumption. Changed it every 5k miles used the correct oil, and it would typically use about 1 quart in those 5k miles. After about 115k it began drinking it at 1 qt every 1k. It had a special coverage for piston replacement until 120k. The cat converter had was almost plugged with white ash, it got replace under warranty. I got two Saturn's with the L61 and they are good engines. Direct injection was a fail in these LEA's.

A water pump should NEVER be driven by timing chain. its a PART THAT FAILS often enough

what a great engine design, no oil pressure, no timing! must be fun to do rebuilds ...

Great teardown as usual 👌 I would love to see a gm 3.6. terrible engine (timming issues)

How about a 2.7 ecoboost out of a 2021+ bronco? Ive heard theyve been getting replaced