It will be interesting to see. Its a pretty strong little engine.

 

I believe that the average S2000's engine will only last about 120,000 miles. Considering that it will take the average S2000 about 10-15 years to get to that mileage.

 

I've got a different philosopy on longevity. I believe that probability will dictate how long the typical mechanical device will last. If you put a repeating stress load on a metal (or for that matter any) object, it will eventually fail. It is quite predictable if you can quantify the stress and the cycles accurately. It depends on the design, load path, strength of the material, temperature and a few other variables. Auto companies have used this type of analysis repeatedly over the years to determine minimum design criteria.

If the stressed component doesn't come close to the yield point of the material, then you are dealing with a low cycle fatigue. Typically, a component should last well over a million cycles if you stay within the low cycle fatigue realm. If you are way below the yielding of that material, you can expect tens of millions of cycles. If you're yielding the material (even slightly), then you're down to tens or hundreds of thousand cycles.

A cycle can be a revolution of an engine (and at VTEC, there are greater stresses), a rotation of a wheel, a heat-up and cool-down of the exhaust system----you get the picture. So if you're considering a fatigue failure to be the car's ultimate demise, then it will be limited by how much stress the average, defect-free component can take.

Wear is a different issue. Wear can also contribute to stresses elsewhere in the vehicle as well. And there's oxidation (corrosion, hydrocarbon breakdown, reduced elasticity of polymers, etc), and a bunch more that I'm not aware of.

So how long can your car last? Forever if you want it to, but you won't have much fun or you won't have many original parts. Let's face it. There are Chevy Vegas that have gotten a few hundred thousand miles on them. And if you can do that with a Vega, then imagine how much you can get out of an S2000!

 

What is a Chevy Vega?

 

The Vega was a car Chevy made in the 70's. It was a rust bucket, and had an Aluminum block with no sleeves. They coated the aluminum cylinders with something to improve the life, but the coating didn't last.

The bottom line: most engines were trash before 80,000 miles. IMO, it was one of the most disposable vehicles ever produced.

 

my cousin's toyota has 320k on it and its still running

 

Interesting dialogue. Honda claims first tune-up on the S isn't required till 105,000 miles. They don't mention the second tune-up...

Had a '75 Vega with iron sleeves retrofitted. Was at 100k miles when I totaled it...

 

Have had the car for 3.5 yrs and have almost 30K miles. At that rate, to reach the 100K goal of failure, I would need to own it for a total of 11.7 years. I think I have better things to worry about.

 

i hope it lives past 100k..

 

I'm 100% confident that if you do the tuneups and don't race your car every single minute, it will last you way past 100k easy.