Automotive Forums  Where Car Enthusiasts Go to Discuss Cars Online

At what point of kms driven does the car engine break down?  

I think you need to be more specific in your question. What engine, how is it being driven, what kind of maintenance is performed, what kind of environment is it being driven in. Several manufacturers have been succesful in determining an engines life span through total energy ouput. Basically energy = hp multiplied by time. So a generic example would 400hp for two hours would be equivalent to 200hp for four hours. There are several other variables in there as stated above and this basically holds true with all other things being equal.

Some cars will go for hundreds of thousands of miles with proper maintenance, I sold my VW GTI with over 250K on it and it was still running strong. I know several people with older 911s that have over 200K and a few over 300K without doing an engine rebuild. I ahve also seen my fair share of abused cars the have just barely made it to 20K before needing a rebuild.