Life expectancy of a 3.1L

[EMB1230]

Ok, my brother bought and '89 Regal GS 2 weeks ago, it does have a LOT of miles, 241K to be exact, the previous owner had it since 1994 and took meticulous care of the car, it's not in excellent shape, but it in very good shape for the age. Engine sounds healthy too, no weird noises. just had new Head gaskets put on it before he bought it. how long do they usually go for?

[armos]

I don't know what many people have got out of them, but that sounds like higher miles than I usually see people talk about with these engines. I think he's well above average at this point, so basically "it could go any time" - but that could still be years off, who knows. I'm sure there's tons of variance depending on how things have been maintained.
Myself I've never seen one over 200k that hasn't been rebuilt, but I don't have much of a sample size.

Personally, I don't think most engines die from "normal" wear and tear. Oh sure, that may be the case for the last 1000 miles, but the majority of their wear probably comes from serious events like oil sludging, running low on oil, coolant in the oil, etc. There's a certain likelihood of such things happening after X miles, and so these type of events pretty much define the average life of an engine.
If the car always has a knowledgeable and meticulous owner who identifies these problems quickly and never lets them do damage, life span will be dramatically higher IMO, way above the normal distribution curve. Once it gets into that range, I don't think you can much predict how long it might go.
That's just my personal theory, I don't have proof of it.

Despite the miles, a car that's had a single owner since it was 5yrs old is a good find. Those are the type of cars that usually get the best care. The first 5yrs usually aren't very eventful, but after that things start to go wrong. Seals start to leak, bad radiators, etc. At that point, a "bad" owner can let a simple problem do substantial damage before it's fixed. Engines that go through too many owners are bound to get neglected at some point, and that's what kills their longevity IMO.

I do wonder how long the extremely well maintained 60degrees have been known to last, I don't have an answer to that. But it doesn't sound like this car will conform to the average range.

[geoffinbc]

My Trooper was at 300,000 miles and the last owner neglected badly. He had an oil bottle under the hood to fill it up because it leaked so bad. I got all the oil leaks fixed and most of the coolant hoses changed when on of the heater hoses blew and I lost all the coolant real fast and cracked a head. But I still got a few months of run time out of it while I built the new engine.

So just make sure all the vital fluids stay in the motor and you should be fine.

[el_roy1985]

Ive seen a well maintained 3100 at over 300k without a rebuild. Guy was a traveling salesman, so it was mostly highway miles. Still impressive though.