Club 80-90 Forums

Hi All,

Our engine blew on friday on trip to lakes and seems somehting has come loose and burst through the engine casing. We are getting it hauled to our local gargage tomorrow and urgently need the van in working order before a trip to france in mid june.

We have looked at engines from the engine shop:
http://www.theengineshop.info/acatalog/ ... 900cc.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and the vw engine company:
http://www.thevwenginecompany.com/speci ... boxer.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

does anyone have experience of these?

or does anyone else have a good quality engine available for sale northwest region or beyond?

thanks for your help

TES (whom I have heard referred to as The Engine Shed) list everything apart from con-rods and their bolts: the very thing that has failed on your 1.9 and wrecked the case.
£1400 falls about 1000 short to rebuild any standard wbx engine with quality compents, never mind the labour, so how they do it is nothing short of a miracle!
"Crack tested case" they say. I didnt know they were prone to failure...
"New cam" well they are about 200 quid from Classic and in short supply the last I heard.
Thing is, no-one is going to purchase one of these engines and then immediately tear it down to see exactly what your 1400 quid actually buys.
The VW engine co page reads about the same, apart from the reference to "all engines electrically run" whatever that means.

Sent from my Gizmondo

Take a chance on the eBay listing for engine in Bolton?

I'm in exactly the same position and needing a new engine. I have to say that I'm tempted with a reconditioned unit from one of these suppliers too, but the reports are mixed which does scare me. The suppliers all give similar statements on what they do to their engines but the prices vary wildly.

The cheapest is Elite, who offer a DG engine for £995.

At the other end of the scale is VW Heritage who offer a remanufactured DG for £2695.

https://www.vwheritage.com/shop/0251000 ... StartRow=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'd be happy to pay for the latter if it was something which was going to last, but realistically is it any better?

Does anyone know anything about the SSP engines from VW Heritage?

Are there any engine suppliers out there who are actually constantly good (which I realise is going to cost a lot more than the Elite £995 option)?

mbcamper wrote:Does anyone know anything about the SSP engines from VW Heritage?

Are there any engine suppliers out there who are actually constantly good (which I realise is going to cost a lot more than the Elite £995 option)?

No sorry I don't but in my opinion VWH are going to be better than a budget rebuild, for £995 you get your old engine reassembled with the bare minimum replaced.
Remember VWH want your old engine in a reconditionable state or add 500 quid.

This crops up a lot on here and to be honest I wouldn't know which to pick myself. There is vege as well, just kampers sell them. All are warranted. I suppose you could buy 2.5 engines from elite for the price of one from heritage, but you could have 2.5 times the trouble.. Id guess a lot of the "bad press" for these companies come from people who buy the engines and abuse them. Not sure if all the 3 you listed offer fitting, but if they did id let them fit it. Let us know which way you go.

that there campershack has a good one on the shelf down in grantham......

Just to keep you all posted we ended up getting the one from the vw engine company. Bit more expensive but good reviews on the site and they seemed to know what they are on about. Time was at a premium as van in garage and we need it sorted and broken in for trip to France in June. It arrived yesterday so I'm hoping it will be fitted for the weekend and another attempt at getting beyond the out reaches of the m62! We are seriously skint now but I guess better it happened before we set off for the ferry or got it over to France... Silver linings and all that! We are just hoping it does is a few miles! I will keep you updated on how we get on and thanks again for all advice etc esp. Metalmickey for all tips over weekend we definitely owe you one and will be in touch soon re windscreen

finally an update...

we had a few (!) teething troubles with the 1st engine we got, leading to it seizing after 9 miles the day we picked it up, and 3 weeks after the original engine blew. the jury is still out as to whether it was a problem with the recon engine or how it was fitted, and I doubt we will ever know for definite.

Anyhow, after another late night trip in a breakdown truck and another tearful frustrated weekend we got a 2nd replacement recon engine delivered free by the vw engine company. No extra cost, that is, except for the labour costs in messing around with the 1st engine for nearly 2 weeks and the fitting of the 2nd engine, not to mention blood sweat and tears and yet more blood sweat and tears etc etc. We finally got the van back just 2 days before our trip to france, and managed a whole 15 miles before we had to set off for the ferry, armed with half the tool shed and replacements of every spare bit we could think of. We had also replaced clutch (recommended), exhaust (fell apart) and radiator (ordered to by my Dad), then the radiator thermoswitch after finding out this wasn't working properly when the new radiator was put in, and which arrived just a few hours before we set off.

We crept our way to Hull, stopping every few miles to let it cool down and check oil etc, made it across the channel and did the requisite 500 mile oil & filter change while staying with some strategically placed inlaws.

I'm pleased to say we are now back from our 3 week 2000 mile trip and the van has been great right the way through, even making it up 4000m to a glacier in the alps.

An amazing trip, and an amazing way to do it, keeping off the motorways and guided by Wild Swim France with a bit of France Passion thrown in. Just a bit of a bugger about Brexit...

So now for trying to repair the hole in the finances and starting to think about those bodywork issues I first posted about back in May...

For a recommendation about the vw ec, they were professional throughout, quick to respond & replace the 2nd faulty engine, but very quick to blame our garage who we still don’t really believe were truelly at fault. But the 2nd engine has been great, we still made our trip and to try & pursue it further to recoup our costs from them would be just too much of a painful and thankless enterprise.

Its been a pretty rotten expensive lesson but we now know and understand our van a lot more, and recognise our naivety in buying van without service history, rushing in to buying a recon engine, using our local non-vw garage rather than finding an expert, etc, etc…

but we live on, and so does our van, and we are looking forward to many more (mis)adventures to come!

Oliviad wrote:professional throughout, quick to respond & replace the 2nd faulty engine, but very quick to blame our garage

Sorry I missed your original post - Sounds similar to my experience with them, 3 engines in quick succession, and I'm still not 100% happy with the one I have now but it's running with a bit of tlc, and with any luck will keep me going until I can afford to put a scooby lump in its place... Hope your issues are now resolved!

My experience:
When my 21 WBX engine gave out at the tail end of 2008 I was at the wrong end of my MOT with my tax running out and no off road parking. I run two vehicles and therefor would normally have rebuilt the engine at my leisure. I was a bit green on flat fours (and skint) at that time and elected to get my mate to tow me from Herts to Pitsea where Elite were offering a removal, rebuild and re-fit for £960. I gave to admit to being a bit shocked by the untidy state of their workshop at that time and later when I had to deal on the phone with three blokes who all answered to the name Mick and looked like clones of the lead male parts in East Enders. However they did the job and it made it home OK when I went to collect. I did wonder how good their warranty was though.
About six months later however it stopped with a bang on the M25 when the Cam gear lost its rivets and attempted to escape damaging the crankcase en route.
After the AA recovered me Elite collected it and after about two months or so presumably waiting for a suitable donor crankcase, they Rebuilt it and I got it back.(I have since learned that the recommended mod is to replace the rivets with high tensile bolts.)
So that was at the tail end of 2008 with 122,380 miles on the clock and it is still going well and burning negligible oil with nearly 150.000 miles on the clock.
Would I use Elite again? Well I have been putting money aside for another such event and may well be tempted to spend the extra money in the somewhat vain hope that I might avoid the need to use the warranty. Got to be fair though they did fix it. Be interesting to have a look round their workshop etc. Probably well smart now. I wonder if they have joined the latex glove and custom workwear brigade!
CS

my elite engine of the same era still going strong too...

not sure that the recent post mick n mick engines are as good....

ermie571 wrote:my elite engine of the same era still going strong too...

not sure that the recent post mick n mick engines are as good....

I did not mean to infer that they were any better or worse than the others in their price bracket. In theory over time they would be expected to polish up the appearance of their premises and the quality of work which went with it. Setting aside the posh uniforms and latex gloves we see in F1 for instance, the main thing is knowledge and experience both of which would be expected to increase over time. A decade should make a difference. As I said I would love to pay them a visit should I be in the area sometime. Good to see your engine is still going.
CS