Car woes – new engine?

Annoyingly I had a 2t engine crane until last year! The main worry for me is the electrics, or finding any damaged wiring or hoses on the donor, or the ECU not playing ball. I expect I’ll have to swap the turbo and a few other bits over from the old engine so I’m expecting some grief from it.

I’d suggest getting a vcds cable off eBay as well then. At least you can test and interrogate some of the modules before firing it up.
At least with having the old engine, as you remove parts you can check to see if they are on the donor engine or not

When I put the engine in my old jet boat, I had nothing bar engine with carbs and an exhaust manifold. Had to guess what all the wires and everything did. Got it running eventually

Modern cars are actually easier to work on that older ones imo. This is because they are actually designed for manufacture, unlike old cars which were barely designed at all.

Make sure you take a load of pics of the engine bay before you start, label or mark wires on plugs and hoses on fittings, and dive in!

Garage suggests £1500 minimum to replace, or £1900 to replace and do the timing belt and water pump at the same time.

That’s cheeky. VW main dealer only charges £400 to change the timing belt and water pump, and that’s with it still in the car.

You’d want the engine ECU from the donor car too. If you are near S Wales I might give you a hand.

If not – does the old car have any bits I might cannibalise? Such as a decent radio or steering wheel with buttons on it? 🙂

Not in South Wales I’m afraid – in Sheffield. Thanks for the offer though. From what I’d read (and the garage said) the ECU shouldn’t need changing, so long as it’s the right donor engine.

I think there are variations and changes in the engine configuration even within the same engine code.

When I had cowboy mechanics bugger up my car, I ended up spending quite a lot of time poring over Elsa wiring diagrams. They change the EGR valve and its associated wiring at some point in the same model year as my car and engine, and I had the wrong version so the valve didn’t operate and threw a fault code. I think this mis-wiring also contributed to that ECU’s ultimate demise, but I’m not sure about that.

It’s not started well. Got home on a flat bed, rolled off ok, and I applied the electric handbrake. Now electric handbrake won’t release, and almost every warning on the dash is lit up (tyre pressure, airbags, steering etc). Hoping it’s just the battery is flat (a couple of hours of hazards on, and a fair few lock/unlocks, shouldn’t have drained it). I guess being towed might have upset a few of the sensors as well.

I love the fact that im getting we buy any car adverts on this thread!

OP my mates 55 plate Passat died after the classic oil pump failure about 5 years ago and when the engine etc was out it must have upset the electronics as when it was started up it was lit up like Blackpool Illuminatons.

It settled itself out after being driven around the garages yard.

I think mine’s a long way from getting driven anywhere for a while! Read somewhere that the electric parking brake is sensitive to low voltage, so hoping it’s just that.

maxtorque – Member

Modern cars are actually easier to work on that older ones imo. This is because they are actually designed for manufacture, unlike old cars which were barely designed at all.

😆
There are modern cars out there with book times of 45mins+ just to change a bulb!

yeah being designed for manufacture is a million miles away from being designed to be worked on.

i prefer the latter.

Modern cars are actually easier to work on that older ones imo. This is because they are actually designed for manufacture, unlike old cars which were barely designed at all.

I’d tend to agree, with modern electronics when you plug a laptop in they largely tell you whats wrong with them. Once inside lots of things are modular.

I think its only Renaults that are so badly designed that it takes 45mins to change a lightbulb.

VAG cars might not be as reliable as people make out but its always possible to work on them plus the availability of know how is amazing e.g. vcds, elsawin etc and parts supply is top notch through TPS.

There are modern cars out there with book times of 45mins+ just to change a bulb!

Offset that with the amount of time requried to diagnose an engine fault.

Cannot imagine what a car’s wiring would look like without Canbus…

Didn’t need any high tech stuff to diagnose my engine. The bits on the floor were a bit of a giveaway 😆

problem is people(garages and dealers included) follow the laptop blindly.

So many times it can be a chain reaction that sets off the codes rather than the issue its self.

Thats true – but I still think its interesting that most people on the street say ‘oh modern cars are so complicated that you cant do anything to them’ when actually the opposite is true. Its just the tools needed these days are different.

I think its a big con sold by the car industry to protect servicing income.

absolutely.

certainly one of the things i look at when i buy a car- what aftermarket/black market tools are availible for reading codes.

Currently holding lexia/pp2000 for old french cars and to a lesser use the Vauxhall one.

worth their weight in gold SOMETIMES. but you still need to know. For example when trying to find a horn fault my local garage threw fuses at the engine bay fuse board and filled up all the empty slots.

it threw an error code a week later- i threw lexia on it and it threw errors of the ECU being corrupt.

Before doing anything further i decided id google the exact wording of the fault – and low and behold it came up with exactly that – a fuse was shorting out the ECU so it was confused. so i checked out the fuse board in the engine against that in the manual and saw there should be empty slots – soon as i removed the fuses all good.

Im sure the dealer would have had a new ECU in there.

I think its a big con sold by the car industry to protect servicing income.

Hmm, maybe.

I have a feeling more people did more work on cars back in the day, because more work needed doing but also more people were working in mechanically based jobs.

Im sure the dealer would have had a new ECU in there.

Yeah, well not all mechanics know what they are doing. And don’t ask me how I know 😉

Ive currently got a Honda FRV and a T5. The Honda hardly ever goes wrong, but I hate working on it – its just not made to be taken apart and the parts feel cheap. The T5 goes wrong but I love working on it, it comes apart easily all the parts feel quality.

Availability of third party software and hacks has become a major factor in my car buying decisions.

The other thing that I’m tending to find is that cars don’t just go wrong – when they do its because of a design fault and therefore will have likely occured in hundreds of the same model – a bit of judicious googling never fails to find something.

it threw an error code a week later- i threw lexia on it and it threw errors of the ECU being corrupt

So much throwing in one sentence.

Friend of ours had a Nissan Note for 7 years, nothing whatsoever went wrong with it. Ferried the family around with complete dependability. Then the by now 9 year old battery finally gave up, and she proclaimed how much she hated cars in floods of tears. FFS. People don’t know what they’ve got half the time.

I’d tend to agree, with modern electronics when you plug a laptop in they largely tell you whats wrong with them

Sort of true, but I’ve seen loads of parts fitted to vehicles that were not required because the garage/home mechanic believed the fault code. Any decent automotive tech will verify the fault first. Unfortunately there are far too many numpties in the trade who will throw parts at a vehicle, charge the customer and still not fix the problem.

Recent example: Customer told fault code (P0342) was because the timing chain was stretched and needed replacing at £600 or so. Actual fault after using oscilloscope to check the camshaft position sensor output was duff sensor. Pattern part had been fitted in the past. Replaced with genuine Bosch. Sorted for £180.

Marko

He knows what he is talking about ^^

molgrips – Member

Offset that with the amount of time required to diagnose an engine fault.

I’ll bow to your greater experience of having to diagnose modern engine faults. 😉

I’m afraid I’ll always prefer sitting on the wheel of an old Jag tweaking the carbs with a screwdriver to plugging in a computer, reading a fault, removing the entire intake manifold to replace a small sensor to find that you still have the same fault and am none the wiser.

(Poor example above, modern injection systems are way better than carbs, but I wanted to draw from personal experience. Oh, and the latter fault was due to, get this, [Prince Philip] dodgy Indian wiring!!! [/Prince Philip].)
😀

Sort of true, but I’ve seen loads of parts fitted to vehicles that were not required because the garage/home mechanic believed the fault code. Any decent automotive tech will verify the fault first. Unfortunately there are far too many numpties in the trade who will throw parts at a vehicle, charge the customer and still not fix the problem.

I totally agree with you I’m not trying to say that its always easy – and not often done wrong by home mechanics or bad professionals just that the modern dogma of cars are too complicated to do anything to is simply not true.

In fact I don’t think scheduled servicing has become any more difficult at all, yet most people believe its totally outside of their abilities.

benjamins11 – Member

Ive currently got a Honda FRV and a T5. The Honda hardly ever goes wrong, but I hate working on it <snip>

The other thing that I’m tending to find is that cars don’t just go wrong – when they do its because of a design fault and therefore will have likely occured in hundreds of the same model – a bit of judicious googling never fails to find something.

My Honda (’99 5dr Civic) was a doddle to service. Only thing that ever went wrong was the heater fan stopped working on settings 1 and 2 which I already knew how to fix thanks to googling (before I purchased the car) as you mention. Superbly reliable car, especially considering that the engine saw the redline on every single outing the car had.

Agreed. One of my recent(ish) experiences with my old E46 BMW. It cut out a couple of times while driving but restarted OK, then on about the fifth time it would not restart. Fortunately at home on the drive, not in the fast lane of the M3 !

Anyway, the fault codes identified all four injectors as being the problem. Just the price of reconditioned injectors would be enough to write off a £500 car, even without the labour to fit them. I was despondent.

But it bugged me that it’s unlikely all four would fail simultaneously. I suspected the ECU for a while, which also looked expensive, until in desperation I started looking at the wiring and found the wire leading to one of the injectors had chaffed on the fuel line and was shorting out.

Chucking injectors & an ECU at the problem would have cost a fortune and would not have fixed it, but thankfully a couple of bits of insulating tape and it’s been perfect ever since 😀

molgrips – Member

FFS. People don’t know what they’ve got half the time.

I know what I’d have: a cut price Nissan Note and a lady in need of a shoulder to cry on. 😈

Oh, and following the computer I replaced the MAP & MAF on my wife’s Passat trying to solve a cutting out problem, before Googling and finding it was just a bad earth. The internet is absolutely awesome for diagnosing car problems, I don’t know how people fixed stuff in the olden days.

Oh, and following the computer I replaced the MAP & MAF on my wife’s Passat trying to solve a cutting out problem, before Googling and finding it was just a bad earth. The internet is absolutely awesome for diagnosing car problems, I don’t know how people fixed stuff in the olden days.

+1

I think its only Renaults that are so badly designed that it takes 45mins to change a lightbulb.

Yep my Renault modus is a bumper off job for that, which also involves taking both front wheels off so you can remove the archliners to get to the mounting bolts.

Found out this whilst checking all the lights prior to taking it for a MOT and finding one was blown, queue furious attempts to get everything removed and refitted in time for the test.

That said its good in other ways.

My Golf mk4 needed the bumper taking off to replace the side lights. In went led side lights guaranteed 50000 illuminations.

I think its only Renaults that are so badly designed that it takes 45mins to change a lightbulb.

VAG cars might not be as reliable as people make out but its always possible to work on them …

2006 VW Passat requires front bumper removal to change the driver’s side headlight bulb: 2-3 hours workshop time at a main dealer! (Luckily there are shortcuts where you only have to take the front wheel off !?! )

There are modern cars out there with book times of 45mins+ just to change a bulb!

Yep.

I think its only Renaults that are so badly designed that it takes 45mins to change a lightbulb.

Nope.
Around that time to change a bulb on a Ford Puma – handbook has it down as a roadside repair! Oh, how I laughed!
First you need to acquire the bloody great Torq key to undo the bolts holding in the grill and the locating straps for the headlight units, then various drain pipes and sundry other bits, then you have to wiggle and coerce the headlight unit out of the car, then get it open, replace the bulb, reverse the procedure.
Octavia takes roughly two to three minutes.

Why would they design it like that. 😐
It defies belief.
It’s like these Range Rovers / Discoveries that need the body lifting clear of the chassis to change a turbo. Something like 20 hours labour. 😐
Couldn’t they just put a removable hatch in the floor… 🙂

Why would they design it like that

Exterior designers say car has to look like this, lights have to go here.
Safety people say you need to make it like this
NCAP pedestrian safety people say you need to make it like this
Headlight units have already been designed on a bench
Packaging engineers then have to fit it all in with all these constraints

I think there is EU requirement somewhere stating that headlight should be possible to change with tools in cars own tools… It says nothing about the time though. First time I changed headlight bulbs to my Scenic II it took at least 45mins per side, later it took only 2-3 mins per side as I’d get plenty if practice.

If you want to see modern car design at its finest check Youtube for Alfa 4C windshield washer fluid 🙂

It’s like these Range Rovers / Discoveries that need the body lifting clear of the chassis to change a

Same for the fuel pump belt which is a service item at 100k miles 😯 although it can be done in situ if you have the hands and arms of a baby with the strength of Hercules!

2006 VW Passat requires front bumper removal to change the driver’s side headlight bulb: 2-3 hours workshop time at a main dealer! (Luckily there are shortcuts where you only have to take the front wheel off !?! )

Am I missing something?