Reconditioned engine recommendations please

busiscoming2

As the title says, any one had a positive experience from having their engine reconditioned?

Or do you think its a waste of time and another vehicle should be purchased instead?

Strider590

busiscoming2 wrote: »

As the title says, any one had a positive experience from having their engine reconditioned?

Or do you think its a waste of time and another vehicle should be purchased instead?

Depends on the depth of the recon and how much it costs versus a replacement engine from another car.

Lum

It's often easier to just get one from a written off car, at least then the chances are the engine has never been opened.

Just don't make the mistake we made. Bought an engine for a 200SX off a bloke who had had his reconditioned, then crashed his car two weeks later, had a receipt for the engine work and got to see the damaged car, rear quarter smashed around a post so a long way from the engine bay.

We drove all the way to Penzance for that bloody engine, despite living in Buckinghamshire at the time.

Turned out the engine builder had fitted the big end bearing shells backwards causing them to grind away at the crankshaft, and the engine builder refused to do anything about it as we wern't the original purchaser.


That said, we were able to combine that engine with parts from the old engine and another half engine we had laying around and get a local engine builder to construct one working (and somewhat uprated) engine, which has been working perfectly and is currently in it's second car.

marlot

There is a company around the heathrow area who keep changing their name, but have a terrible reputation.

My first choice would be an engine from a crashed car. If its a recent car, you may also need the ECU - its a lot harder to get the electronics working than it used to be.

My second choice would be to go to an FER member. http://www.fer.co.uk/ At least you'll be dealing with a company who knows how to rebuild engines properly.

busiscoming2

marlot wrote: »

There is a company around the heathrow area who keep changing their name, but have a terrible reputation.

My first choice would be an engine from a crashed car. If its a recent car, you may also need the ECU - its a lot harder to get the electronics working than it used to be.

My second choice would be to go to an FER member. http://www.fer.co.uk/ At least you'll be dealing with a company who knows how to rebuild engines properly.

Thanks, I know about the Heathrow lot.

Its an Iveco van not a car so I don't know if it makes any difference.

flashg67

I know Motorman or Dragon Engines are big suppliers to fleets and tend to know what they are doing, give gaurantees & sometimes offer 'used tested' engines.

Work out what the car's worth including an engine though - if it's a 'standard' car, a few years old, unfortunately it's often better to scrap or ebay it for parts

mikey72

I've never heard good reports on re-con engines generally.
I've rebuilt ones myself that have been fine, so it's not a black art, but there are so many poor ones out there now it's always going to be a gamble.
A decent second hand one from a write off would be better, it you can see it in the van beforehand, to make sure it's not a heavy front end smash, then check you actually have the same engine number when you get the engine delivered.