Okay, true - there will be "increased engine and bearing life", but we have NO data to indicate what the magnitude of the increase is. Did it increase from 200,000 miles to 400,000 miles? If so, I personally don't care. The only real data they show is how much quieter it got. I will admit that on the straight six supra motor the DMD may very well be required to make reasonable life - it's just not supported in any of the data they present in that paper, and even if it is that doesn't in any way carry over to it's use on our short crank V6 duratec.
Look at the initial press lit. on the PT Cruiser. It mentions that they use a new gates EPDM damper for increased crank life. Has anyone ever seen a problem with torsional excitiation failure on a low revving 4 cylinder engine? No, but theoretically they are right - the crank should last a whole lot longer with that damper. You could probably pull it out of the rusted out shell of the car in 20 years and use it again if you really wanted to
I'll readily admit that I'm just guessing, but I'm intrested to see more on procyon's opinion of the whole mess - he seems to really know his stuff and indicated he thinks the DMD is "probably" more for NVH than reliability.
