Fiesta service dispute

devonhil

It's a 1.5tdi titanium model. I did see you can buy a decent second-hand engine on eBay for around £500-800 mark. Does anyone know roughly how much it would cost in labour (or an estimate of number of hours)  to swap in a different engine? Might be a cheaper option than total rebuild of existing engine? Thanks again for everyone's advice - I'm very grateful for your help.
Foxy-stoat - the guy at the garage said they had to remove gearbox to examine the engine - does that sound right? I assumed the gearbox was beneath the engine ( shows how little i know!)

AdrianC

The gearbox is on one end of the engine. They would remove the engine and gearbox together, to allow them to start stripping the engine.

Yes, removing and refitting a used engine will definitely be cheaper than removing the existing engine, rebuilding it, then refitting it. Let's put it this way... £500 doesn't buy you much labour, much machining, or many parts for a rebuild.

GrumpyDil

And unless I'm missing something the garage have still not confirmed it is definately the engine. I'd agree to pay for some diagnostics and go from there as it feels a little too soon to be contemplating writing the car off. 

foxy-stoat

They are probably trying to eliminate if the box is seized or if the flywheel has broken up locking the engine.

Either way you will have to pay for some exploratory work.

devonhil

UPDATE
currently the garage have taken out the engine and determined that a piston has broken off and gone into engine - complete write-off. The man at garage phoned me to tell me and then started to go on about how my service paperwork had the 'wrong' oil listed and that they were sending off a sample for 'independent testing' to determine whether the wrong oil was actually used or whether the error is just in the paperwork (which they are trying to suggest is the case). Apparently, if the oil listed on my service report is in the engine, then they are liable and have caused the damage. Has anyone heard of this kind of thing? Would you advise that I get a sample tested too, in case there are 'discrepancies'. The repair is going to be well over £3,000 with labour costs! At the moment we are all being very polite and I have had a courtesy car from them throughout the process.

AdrianC

"The wrong oil" won't cause a piston to "break off".

devonhil

hi AdrianC - thanks for the response. I don't think I phrased it properly - its a piston rod which has fractured and gone into the engine block. I've googled it (bad I know!) and one of the causes is 'oil problems'. As far as I understand it, it makes the engine unrepairable (or at least not economically-repairable)?

AdrianC

The kind of "oil problems" that would cause a conrod to snap are... no oil.

The wrong viscosity...? Nope.

devonhil

that's so strange - why are they willing to accept liability if they've used an unsuitable oil? I'm starting to wonder if they didn't put enough/any oil in (though I suppose that would produce a low oil warning light)? Most of other reasons for rods to fracture, apart from lack of lubrication, seem to involve a degree of advanced warning - engine knocking/power loss/white exhaust smoke/excessive engine smoking/excessive oil consumption/oil warning lights - absolutely none of these happened. The car was running smoothly on first drive after service (as always), on the next drive there was power loss within a mile of starting and engine failure within a minute of that. No noise, no warning, no signs of any underlying problem at all. 

foxy-stoat

So to sum up, a conrod has failed on a 5 year old Ford engine with 90,000 miles.  

Either replace the engine with a good secondhand unit or sell the car as it is and buy another one.  

Unlucky but not unheard of.

Another vote for if the wrong oil was used then this wouldn't of caused a conrod to fail.