"Doc" <docsavage20@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:QN58c.4320$V66.176@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Does anyone have a comparative experience getting a rebuilt engine or
trans
> from a parts store -vs- going to a local machine shop or trans shop to
have
> it done?
I've done a rebuilt engine in my 84 Chevy wagon. I'll relate how I went
about it.
>
> The particular units in question are for an '89 Cressida.
>
>
If the 89 Cressida is clean, straight, never been in an accident, and the
paint is in
great shape, then go for it. Just remember that if your carrying
comprehensive
insurance on the car that AFTER the rebuild when you have all your
receipts,
contact your insurance agent and make sure your coverage is adequate. If
the
insurance company doesen't know the vehicle has had a rebuild in it, they
may treat
it as the typical worthless car if you get into an accident.
Anyway, when I did my car I started by calling every machine shop in the
yellow pages that advertised they rebuilt engines, and asked them what
their
warranty was like. Most of them were 6 months 6K miles, a few were longer
than that. I chose the longer ones and paid them a visit.
It turned out that all of these places didn't actually rebuild the engines
there. Instead they sent them out. In short, what they were doing is
merely reselling
engines that someone else was building. I was very uninterested in this
as
I could
immediately see that the op****tunities for the rebuilder to escape a
warranty claim
were bountiful.
So I then started calling engine wholesalers in the yellow pages.
Paydirt!
I quickly
located 3 different ones that for starters their warranties offered were
much longer,
plus the people were a hell of a lot more knowledgeable on the phone.
They
all were
familiar with my engine too and 2 of the shops said that it was a known
fact
that the
oil passages in the crank were too small and they always drilled them out
during
a rebuild. Even though they all did take pains to explain that they
mainly
wholesaled to
mechanics, none of them
were uninterested in talking to me. I visited them and looked at the
facilities and
was quite impressed by the cleanliness of the layouts and the obviously
quite expensive
and sophisticated engine test machinery in use.
The place that I ended up picking I then asked for a referral to a local
mechanic that
they sold a lot of engines to. I got a list of local shops and then
visited
them and
picked one that was close by, and cut a deal for the shop to do the engine
install.
What I ended up is a car with a 5 year, 50,000 mile warranty on the
rebuilt
engine,
and the engine was rebuilt locally by a shop that I've actually set foot
in.
And as a point of fact I've had no trouble dealing with them on warranty
claims as
I have put in 2 of them. The first was the day I drove the car out of the
shop, I
took it on a 2 hour test drive and once the car was good and warm the oil
pressure
dropped below the redline at idle, which is a typical symptom of a bad oil
pump.
They had installed a new oil pump as part of the rebuild, and when I took
it
back
they immediately pulled the pan and tossed out the pump and replaced it
with
another new one that has given no problems since. (The old oil pump on
the
engine pre-rebuild never did this, which is why I recognized the problem
right away)
The second warranty claim was 2 years later, for an oil leak, the usual
slow
drip that messes up the driveway sort of thing, it was a leaky pan gasket.
Both times
there was no charge for the work.
Anyway, in summary I paid out about $1K for the shop to do the labor. But
if I hadn't done it that way the warranty on the engine would not have
been
5
years 50K miles, it would have been 2 years 20,000 miles. So to me it was
worth it, and with the oil pump and pan gasket thing the warranty paid for
itself in nuisance work. And I'm still driving the vehicle and it runs
very
well
except for cold starts, which is due to the crappy varajet carburetor on
the
thing which needs rebuilding. (and the shop that did the engine swap told
me
this 2 years ago when they swapped it also, but I'm cheap)
Now, contrast this to my father who did an engine rebuild in one of his
cars about 8 years ago. He called around to a bunch of machine shops
that advertised engine rebuilds and picked the cheapest one in the book.
About a month after he got the car back he was 300 miles away in
it and it threw a rod. He took it to a local shop there who contacted the
shop here which freighted a replacement engine to that shop, that shop
installed it and freighted back the bad engine, and 2 months after that
the replacement engine broke! (fortunately here in the city) It went
back to the shop that put a third engine in it, and the third engine was
still
in the car 2 years later when he just gave the car to me. I drove it for
a year and it threw a rod again, and during the time I drove it, it had
numerous problems.
Ted
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