What a luck! Just 3 weeks after having the car serviced, breaks replaced, engine mount replaced, CPS, BOV and APC proactively changed, etc the engine has given up after only 126k miles - while accelerating it went boom! crunch crunch crunch silence.... According to Motorvation piston number 3 ceased to exist - cheapest option that makes sense (please confirm) is to buy a brand new engine from neobros (£1600) and get it swapped. I was told all in all £2400-2700 for the job.
Since I am sort of emotionally attached to the car, it is in a really good clean condition and it was well cared for, I initially said - fix! Now that I rethought, checked autotrader etc and I can buy a newer 9-5 with not so many miles for about that.
Good question now: should I buy a "new" MY2003-2004 Aero or fix my old banger? How much money is a well cared for 2002 Aero with busted engine worth?
Isn't £800-1100 a bit excessive for relatively simple job of disconnecting one engine, swapping accessories onto the new one and mounting it in (pretty much labour charges + fluids + oil filter)?
How much would it be to fix just a busted piston/cylinder?
£2700 sounds like more than the car is effectively worth. A lot more in fact...
You could end up buying another car with the engine about to go pop so you're not comparing like for like, you're either getting a new engine for your car or a new unknown quantity that will need money spending on it.
What it comes down to is how much you like your car and how well maintained it is, it sounds like you've spent quite a bit of money on it already so having an engine put in for £2700 could be cheaper than replacing the car long term.
I'd say £1100 for the charge for swapping an engine is reasonable, remember nearly £200 of that is VAT! Saying that the engines Neo are supplying are complete with head as in the past you'd only get a block so I'd hope it came out a bit more towards the £800 end of the spectrum. Just keep in mind It's not a simple task as you have to remove the engine, gearbox, subframe, driveshafts and then get it all back together and working nicely which can take a while as after an engine swap you'll always find things like rattles, minor running problems etc. etc.
You're right that £2700 is more than the car would sell for but I'd not relate that to worth, the engine on the 9-5 is a bit of an expensive weak point so once replaced you should be good for another 130k, quite simply, how many years do you want to be driving this car? If you're happy to keep it another 10 years then repairing now would possibly be the cheap option long term, if you were already thinking of getting rid then you can probably sell it for £300-£500 with the blown engine and just get another.
Rather than buy a new engine, I'd find a B234 block and marry that to a T7 head- possibly even your own if it's not damaged. It'll be cheaper and stronger than a new B235. You should be able to get both of them for comfortably less than £400. Fitting would be the same.
Yes, a very sound idea, and I have already known this done (after an accident with biofuel).
Although I can't see the sense in putting a second hand engine in, as you'd be no better off than just buying a complete working car for less money.
You would not know what faults another car may/not have. Changing the block would mean no worries here.
...but you end up putting in another block that may give problems in future, I'd rather keep to a new engine for £1600 or replace the car. I'd not entertain the idea of a second hand block as it just wouldn't be worth it.
After putting some thought into the case, I think fixing it makes more sense than scrapping. I need 2 cars - an estate - a babywagon for the missus and something to get me around. The babywagon needs to wait I guess...
I don't want to play around with B234 block etc. In fact I could consider if I had other cars and a good garage/workshop I could play around with it. Actually I would have just replaced the busted piston, cylinder etc. Years ago I had time and means to do it, nowadays I don't so need to cough up...
If you put another block in it's only a bit more labour to check it out and the B234s are known for their durability. I certainly wouldn't worry about putting one in mine.
Hmmn, I've known B234's to fail and there is messing about putting them in a 9-5, I don't think they're going to be any better than a complete brand new B235 engine which I'd expect to get a warranty on! I'd call Neo and ask them how much for engine fitted which when you compare to a B234 you have to play with heads and gaskets which is extra labour where Neo are selling the complete engine for £1600. I just think by the time I'd paid for a B234 engine put into a car it'd cost more than a complete car and some pennies to sort problems on it.
I agree with Audax, it just doesn't make sense to mess about when brand new engine is relatively inexpensive. Different thing if it was supposed to be a track car and prepared to be seriously upgraded...
One thing I will do though is swap my stage 1 Trionic7 for stock. It may have contributed to the disintegration of the piston - open sid was showing >1.5 bar boost when floored... I'm gonna miss the open sid and extra oomph though. But the new engine should be run in with stock programme.
Q? How do you get this open SID. Mine is a SID2.
It's a function of Trionic suite- only available for petrol models I'm afraid.
Thank you :)
Leelac at Bedford had some reconditioned engines available recently. Maybe worth a call as he can fit them too.
Motorvation is already fixing mine. Went there on Wed to drop off my stock ECU, car was already in the air, brand spanking new engine delivered. Hopefully I'll collect today. Baby due on Monday so everything is happening at the same time...
2 babies by the sound of it :)
Quote from: Drac on 24 March 2012, 01:49:28 AM
What a luck! Just 3 weeks after having the car serviced, breaks replaced, engine mount replaced, CPS, BOV and APC proactively changed, etc the engine has given up after only 126k miles - while accelerating it went boom! crunch crunch crunch silence.... According to Motorvation piston number 3 ceased to exist - cheapest option that makes sense (please confirm) is to buy a brand new engine from neobros (£1600) and get it swapped. I was told all in all £2400-2700 for the job.
Since I am sort of emotionally attached to the car, it is in a really good clean condition and it was well cared for, I initially said - fix! Now that I rethought, checked autotrader etc and I can buy a newer 9-5 with not so many miles for about that.
Good question now: should I buy a "new" MY2003-2004 Aero or fix my old banger? How much money is a well cared for 2002 Aero with busted engine worth?
How long have you had the Stage 1 an who was the tuner out of interest?
This is the 3rd busted piston stage 1 Ive heard about recently.......
I'm sure it's all coincidental mind.
P
Isn't £800-1100 a bit excessive for relatively simple job of disconnecting one engine, swapping accessories onto the new one and mounting it in (pretty much labour charges + fluids + oil filter)?
How much would it be to fix just a busted piston/cylinder?
£2700 sounds like more than the car is effectively worth. A lot more in fact...
Any similarity?
http://www.uksaabs.co.uk/UKS/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=92985
Dunno really, the piston in my engine was completely gone - disintegrated. When viewed through the spark plug hole - the crankshaft was seen and that's about it. No sign of piston. Blocked oil jet was also suspected. The spark plug face was also smashed.
Sort of hard to tell, although 500 miles before the catastrophic failure the car was in for a service and compression was perfect (I asked that to be checked - 141psi = 9.65 bar) across all cylinders.
On the other note what I've also seen lately was a relatively high fuel consumption - about 24 mpg combined, although most of my mileage was done on motorway (in relatively heavy traffic though). Leaking injector? Possibly!
Could the Stage1 tuning contribute to the problem? Most certainly - if the programme had bad A/F ratio set. I've done about 15k miles with Stage 1 and it was fine until a week ago. I'm planning to get my own CANUSB interface so I can play around myself (and to switch on the opensid on stock software).
When I bought the car 4 years ago the first thing was to drop the sump and clean the sludge. All regular service from then on using fully synthetic oil (GM and Mobil1).
Anyway, the car is now fixed and at home. Brand new shiny engine in. ECU swapped for the stock 250bhp, newest software uploaded (apparently to help with common problem of failing DI cassette). On the way home (M25 @ 65-70mph) it gave me 35mpg.
The new B235 engines sold by neo are of a latest sort (2006 on)- meaning having the new (2004 on) oil breathing system, and the block heating option! Although the initial plan was to swap the whole system from the old engine, chaps in Motorvation found the service bulletin on how to modify piping so I ended up with the latest greatest and brand new!
All in all it did cost me just a few beers short of £2.4k - that's the new engine, labour, service items (oil, coolant, transmission), bits and pieces.
As to the earlier question about the tuner - it was EMST (Saab guru in Poland). Dunno what he's loaded in - whether it's BSR/Maptun/Nordic/Hirsch based or completely developed from scratch. We tried about 6 different programmes and chose the one that was working best. He was finetuning the software on the fly - checking the A/F ratio and other key parameters. The auto gearbox was also fooled to get 400Nm torque despite the usual limit, as well as speed limiter was raised to 270km/h (168mph). Tried it on autobahn on the way back to the UK, it reached 260km/h (160mph) but I refused to push it further (boot was full, only regular petrol in, middle of the summer, traffic was building up, SWMBO screaming and threatening with a divorce and getting out of a car there and then ;D).
I generally drive my car like a retired dentist, but like the occassional oomph when needed. You can't sort of use it on M25/M4 in morning and evening traffic or generally around London anyway...
Quote from: Norfolk Jim on 30 March 2012, 08:40:50 AM
2 babies by the sound of it :)
SWMBO indeed looks like it was at least 2 ::)