Out with the Old In with the Rebuild

Engines and vehicles are lasting longer than ever today — which means that over all, engine rebuilding isn’t being done like it used to be a couple of decades ago. But there are still times when a rebuild makes perfect sense — you just have to be savvy to know when.

“It has to make economic sense; sometimes we get people who are just so fond of their cars that they don’t want to get rid of them,” says John Solecki, owner of Scarborough Engine and Machine Ltd., in Toronto.

There are many times when a rebuild makes sense in both older and newer vehicles, says Louis Mangov of Crosstown Engine Remanufacturing in Scarborough, Ont.

“In the broad scheme of things you’d look at it and say it doesn’t make sense to put more money into a car that’s worth less,” Mangov says, using the example of a customer who came to him with a car worth only $500 when an engine rebuild was going to cost $2,500, with some additional repairs bringing the bill to $3,000.

“But where can you go out and buy a car for $3,000, drive it down the road and have some type of assurance in the back of your mind that you’re not going to have any problem with it?”

John Goodman, president of the Buffalo Grove, Ill.-based Automotive Engine Rebuilders Association (AERA), agrees. “It makes a lot of sense to put a rebuilt engine in older cars. If the basic car is still functional and the owner likes the vehicle and can see no particular reason to change, then a rebuilt engine makes perfect sense. It makes economic sense to be sure, especially with the prices of today’s vehicles.”

In newer vehicles, says Solecki, “I think it always makes sense. I would just be cautious not to spend more than the value of the car. A lot of that decision has to be made on the basis of what the condition of the rest of the car is.”

He cites a recent example of a five-year-old GM four-by-four that had had all brakes done and a new transmission, but needed a new engine. “In that case I think it’s sort of obvious, it makes sense to go ahead with it. With reasonable maintenance, you’ll get another five or six years out of the vehicle.”

Selling a rebuild job

The problem say Solecki and Goodman, is that more often than not, general automotive shops and technicians don’t know how to sell an engine rebuild. “Technicians have grown up learning how to sell on price, and they wind up doing their customers, themselves and their employers a disservice,” says Solecki.

“I don’t think the automotive shops do well at selling that service although they’re certainly better at it than the engine automotive machine shops themselves,” says the AERA’s Goodman. “It comes down to doing a little question-and-answer with the customer … they may not always understand when that line is crossed between keeping the car and letting the car go. They have to do more question-and-answer.”

Some key questions to ask when it comes to selling a rebuild, says Solecki, are these:

* Are you happy with the car?

* Can you see yourself in this car for another four or five years?

* Are there any other areas you are concerned about?

* Has the transmission been done?

* Have the brakes all been done?

“The customer will know whether it’s worth it for his particular situation, be it a $5,000 job or a $2,000 job,” says Mangov.

For the most part, general automotive shops don’t recommend engine rebuilds unless absolutely necessary. “If a customer has 300,000 kilometres on it and it’s running okay, then carry on,” says Gary Stinson, of Stinson Automotive in Mississauga, Ont.

Sydney Gonsalves, owner of South Scarboro Auto Service in Toronto, agrees. “We only recommend a rebuild if it’s needed. It has to have a problem internally. On an older car, the only time you’d do it is if it’s burning oil,” he says.

“The adage is still true,” acknowledges the AERA’s Goodman. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it… There’s no hard and fast rule about when an individual should consider an engine rebuild.”

A quality engine rebuild will add 60,000 kilometres to the life of a vehicle, points out Mangov.

Go used … or not

Should you go rebuilt or used? Rebuilders generally avoid used engines like the plague. Says Solecki, “I would only purchase a used engine with the intention of putting it into another vehicle if I could hear it running or if I knew something bout the history of it.”

“As an association that supports automotive engine rebuilding, I would not comment favourably on used engines,” adds the AERA’s Goodman. “First, there’s just a whole host of things we don’t like. In a rebuilt or remanufactured engine, we control all areas of quality. In a used engine, you have virtually no idea what the maintenance record was on that engine…it’s pot luck. The amount of problems that you can run into … can be monumental.”

Gary Stinson, although he’s not a fan of rebuilt engines, says that with the cost of used and rebuilt engines growing closer, rebuilt is usually the better choice. For engines 1998 and newer, he says, a used engine costs about $2,000 and a rebuilt is about $2,800. “Used is two thirds the cost of a rebuilt, so you’d go with the rebuilt because you know everything inside, and there’s a warranty if anything goes wrong.”

Stinson isn’t a fan of rebuilt engines because, he says, in his experience, “From what we see, one out 10 fails. There are issues with rebuilds. They’re never as good as brand-new engines.”

“We prefer to go rebuild (than used) because you have a better warranty. It’s better because you know what you’re getting,” says Gonvalves of South Scarboro Auto Service. “When you buy used, you don’t know what you’re getting, how many kilometres are on the engine, and you can still have problems.”

The rebuilders say that today’s rebuilt engines are better than original ones. “Manufacturers sometimes weren’t aware of the problems that were going to happen with an engine in the field down the road,” says Mangov. “Whereas in the field, we do see the problems, the aftermarket has jumped on it, made updated components and made the engine better… You’re rebuilding the same engine, but you’re replacing the parts and making it a lot better than when it came out of the factory.”

“What we typically see on the installation side is that generally the problems that caused the engine to be rebuilt in the first place are still with the vehicle,” says Goodman. “It could be a coolant problem, it could be a transmission … and those kinds of things have to be determined, found and solved. We typically don’t see too much of a problem with the engine itself if the installation is done properly and the root cause of the failure is determined and fixed.”

Partial vs. complete rebuilds

Should you recommend a partial or a full rebuild?

“Partial rebuilds are fading fast,” says Goodman. “The modern engines, with onboard diagnostics, really don’t tolerate a patch job very well. They’ll throw fault codes. They’ll read the wear in the engine typically, and unless those parts are renewed, the diagnostic system will pick it up.”

Any engine newer than 1994 or 1996 should be completely rebuilt, he says.

“We only do complete rebuilds. We don’t do partials,” affirms Mangov of Crosstown Engine Remanufacturers. Partial rebuilds “can fix one problem and create another,” he says. A customer who only wants a valve or cylinder head job on an engine with 200,000 kilometres on it is bound for more problems down the road, “And that’s bad for the whole industry, and bad for the customer spending his money and wasting it.”

And should you get your shop into engine rebuilding?

“I think today with the complexity of engines and the requirement for a much higher degree of accuracy on dimensions, it should be left to the engine specialists,” says Goodman. “Automotive repair shops for the most part recognize this and go to th
eir local sources for engines when they need them. Some shops still do valve jobs because they’re equipped for them, but I think some are even finding if you have to get that deep in the engine, it’s just as well to replace the whole engine.”

Most general repair shops, in addition to not having the specialized skills needed for modern engine rebuilding, also don’t have nearly enough capital to invest in the equipment that’s required for engine rebuilding.

“A typical automotive machine shop could have $100,000 to $200,000 invested in surfacing, grinding, honing and boring equipment,” says Goodman.

Adds Mangov, “If a garage is farming out a job, he can make his mark-up on an engine sale and not really have to do anything. He can use his shop and his bays to do other kinds of work.”