1: Engine Oil Is Low Or Of Poor Quality
The first and foremost reason for piston ring wear and damage is low or poor quality engine oil.

Engine oil is vital for lubricating the engine components. And piston rings need to form a thick film so that there won’t be metal-to-metal friction with the cylinder walls.

Now, if the engine oil levels are low or the oil is of poor quality, there won’t be sufficient lubrication when the piston rings rub the cylinder walls during the to-and-fro movement of the piston.

As a result, the strong metal to metal contact between the rings and the cylinder’s inner walls results in the wear and damage of the piston rings and even the damage of inner walls of the cylinder.

2: Air Filter Is Letting In Dust
If the air filter is not working properly and filtering the dust from air particles, there can be damage to the piston rings.

When the dust enters the engine, since air filters are not filtering them, these particles start getting accumulating on the cylinder walls. And bit by bit, slowly and steadily, they start to ear out both the piston rings and the cylinder inner walls.

Of course, this is not sudden damage to either piston rings or the cylinder walls. But, it is a slow process and it eventually gets so bad that you need to remove the piston rings and replace them, and for the cylinder walls, you have to re-bore the cylinder for further usage.

3: Oil Filter Is Not Filtering Right
When the engine oil has lots of contaminants and grit, it again starts accumulating and over time, damages both the piston rings and the cylinder walls.

Eventually, the only solution remains that one needs to replace the piston rings and re-bore the cylinder to get a clean inner cylinder wall.

In a way, the oil filter problem is much more serious than that of the air filter problem. This is because the oil film needs to be continuously present between the piston rings and the cylinder walls to avoid metal to metal friction.

And the oil contaminants and grit accumulating there worsens the situation by gradually damaging both the piston rings and the cylinder walls.

4: Engine Blowby
Engine blowby happens when the fuel mixture in the combustion chamber trickles down along the gaps between the piston and the piston rings.

As a result of this tricking down of the fuel mixture, the fuel which is getting burnt will also burn the piston rings, engine oil along the piston walls as well as the piston grooves.

Although the main effect of engine blowby is low compression and loss of power in the engine, it also results in the damage of piston rings – mainly the compression ring.

To know more, here is our explainer on engine blowby’s cause and symptoms.

5: Fuel Flooding In Carburetted Engines
Fuel flooding occurs when a rich mixture enters the engine and is unable to detonate completely. As a result, traces of unburnt fuel remains inside the engine.

Now what this unburnt fuel does is it starts accumulating and replacing the thick oil film along the cylinder walls.

If the lubricating oil has not formed a thick layer, the unburnt fuel will easily replace them.

As soon as the fuel replaces the oil, the piston rings and the cylinder walls will start to have close metal to metal contact since there is no more oil lubricating them.

As a result, continuous metal to metal friction will start between the rings and the inner cylinder walls until the fuel has been removed from the engine through exhaust ports.

If this cycle of fuel flooding keeps on continuing, then the metal to metal friction will increase dramatically, resulting in damaged piston rings.

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