In relation to this video:
A few things in here really made me facepalm. It uses belts to drive the cams and oil pump, which wouldn't be too remarkable except that they're INSIDE the engine, and while I would hope that they used a special composition belt, the state of the belts in a short service life leads me to think they're pretty much standard rubber timing belts that last about as good as you'd expect bathed in hot oil their whole life. In this teardown, the belts appear to have caused the destruction of the engine.
Also, the timing belt isn't keyed to the crank. Yep, that's right, it only keeps timing if the toothed pulley remains torqued enough.
I shouldn't be surprised that this exists, but I keep wondering why it exists. Even an amateur engineer can see these obvious failure points, and yet a company with more than a century of experience in motor design has made this engine.
Some things might be easily explained by cost cutting. Not keying the crank technically saves on a machining step. But belts inside the engine?
The more sinister side to all this is 1) planned obsolescence after about 5 years, and 2) difficulty in maintenance and repair by either the consumer or 3rd party repair.
Take for example the timing belt, it's no longer a matter of simply synchronising the belts teeth to the correct teeth on each pulley. It now has an infinitely variable pulley which needs some special tools to get it synchronised.
Does anyone have any insight into the industry? I can't believe these are ideas originating with engineers, but rather the accounting department. Or is that even too generous to all engineers, is there also a culture of amorality in which they're in the business of creating the ultimate disposable consooooomer item? Let's not forget VW's dieselgate, there's plenty of engineers willing to go along with some shady stuff.