Tearing Down an Abused LS Engine with 357,000 Mile That Idled For 12 Months

When it comes to vehicles that need to stand up to a tall challenge, police cars fit that role well. After all, over the lifespan of a police cruiser, it’s not exactly seeing all easy miles. In between pursuits and lots of hours prowling the streets, these cars definitely see their fair share of use. Having a reliable car in this line of work is definitely a necessity.

The thing about police cars is that they don’t get shut off frequently, either. Instead, they spent a lot of time idling in between drives. This is essentially due to the fact the police cars run a lot of accessories. Allowing the car to run ensures that the battery will not meet an untimely demise in the line of duty. However, there definitely are downsides to allowing a vehicle to idle for all that time.

This time, we check in with the video from the LegitStreetCars YouTube channel that takes us inside of a police cruiser. Over its life cycle, this cop car has spent 8300 hours of idle time. With one hour of idling converting to about 33 miles of driving, that means that the engine has been put through 275,000 miles of wear through idling alone. Throw in the extra 82,000 miles that the car actually drove and it brings us to the grand total of 357,000 engine miles. At the end of the day, LS or not, that’s a lot of miles to consider.

By following along below, we get to watch as the engine is torn down and gone over. At the end of the day, is this thing going to look as worn out and abused as an engine that has seen over 300,000 miles of driving time? This certainly opens up an interesting question as to what’s going on under the hood of these cars when they’re left idle.