wrote:
Because of the higher compression ratio, a diesel has to be built
"beefier" than a gas engine to last as the automakers found out when
they tried a direct conversion on their gas engines in the 80's.

Well, the Rabbit I had was built with exactly the same block, pistons,
crank, etc, as the gas version. The basicly just slapped a shallower
head on the thing to increase the compression ratio.

We drove the car into the ground at about 160k miles. We replaced
pretty much all of the accessories (starter, water pump, alternator,
radiator, etc) at least once, and the clutch wore out at about 110k, and
the body was more rust than steel, and the electrical system was a mess,
but the core engine was just fine.

The only thing that ever happened to the engine core was a blown head
gasket, but that was really my fault. We had chronic overheating
problems due to a leak in the cooling system that we didn't fix for a
while. Eventually, the gasket said, "OK, if you want to keep abusing me
like that, I'm outta here".