[4.20_Cougar]

My friend just picked up a 90 SC with 55,000 miles on it- mint body, ran great- only kind of crappy looking parts were the front leather seats (cracked). Anyhow, about 3 weeks later he blows the head gaskets- takes it to ford for supposedly a $1500 head gasket replacement, and they ended up getting him for $6000 for a new crate motor installed- said he cracked the block and the heads and they had to replace the whole engine. So his $3500 find turned into a $10,000 nightmare- at least he gets a fresh engine to mod......Does this seem high for a new motor? The thing that gets me is that the car never ran crappy to the day it went in, just overheated. It didn't seem as serious as they told him it was.

 

[Thomas]

Dealers will rape you of your life savings to put a motor in. Yes it's possible to crack the heads but I don't know about the block. A motor can be running great until the head gaskets go. same thing happened with mine, ran great, then one day the temp gauge went through the roof and I had them replaced for 2,000. The easier thing would have been to just buy a new car or get an engine from a junk yard. supercoupe, f-150 4.2, 4.6, or 5.0 and just swapped it in for a thousand or so dollars. you can get an engine for about 650 and all the accessories with it for about 1200. NEVER let a dealer replace your engine. I hate those people. I feel sorry for your friend. They should have some kind of foundation to help fund people that go through that.
-Thomas

 

[cmd146]

Another Horror Story

A similar thing happened to a friend of mine. He traded in his low milage, laser red, 3.8 93LX for an 80,000 mile, black 95 4.6 LX that was way overpriced. Why? Because he was afraid of blowing a head gasket after watching me replace the head gaskets on my 95 3.8LX, and of course instantly fell in love with the shiny black V8 T-bird. Anyone wanna guess how this story ends?

You guessed it. His 4.6 overheated and blew a head gasket exactly 2 months later! Anyhow, he takes it back to the dealer, who tells him he cracked the block, warped the heads, and spun a bearing. Now, understand that this car drove to the dealership and made no noises whatsoever. So they install a new "crate" engine and charge $5,500. He takes out a loan with his credit union to consolidate his car loan and the cost of the repairs. That was two years ago. He still owes around $10,000 on the car today and now has 120,000 miles on it. The paint has faded all the way down to the primer on the hood and trunklid, and now the transmission is slipping.

To me it would be no big deal, get the trans redone and get the car painted, but then again, I don't owe $10,000 on my car. My car could explode and burn to the ground tomorrow and I'd really have nothing to complain about.

 

[GreenBird]

My friend just picked up a 90 SC with 55,000 miles on it- mint body, ran great- only kind of crappy looking parts were the front leather seats (cracked). Anyhow, about 3 weeks later he blows the head gaskets- takes it to ford for supposedly a $1500 head gasket replacement, and they ended up getting him for $6000 for a new crate motor installed- said he cracked the block and the heads and they had to replace the whole engine. So his $3500 find turned into a $10,000 nightmare- at least he gets a fresh engine to mod......Does this seem high for a new motor? The thing that gets me is that the car never ran crappy to the day it went in, just overheated. It didn't seem as serious as they told him it was.

Tell your friend not to pay the dealer. Unless THEY are able to produce PROOF that your friend agreed to have a new motor put in, he doesn't have to pay them squat.

 

[CamellionCat]

yesssssss he did

its more like he got bent over and got done, by the dealer.

Marvin M.

 

[Thomas]

I say go burn a couple cars in that dealers lot. but that's just me. Man that is MEAN! I hate dealers. Hate 'em. Scum of the earth to me. Except those cool ones which come one in a million. I think there's even a member of this forum who's a dealer...he's cool. Other than them. I HATE EM!
-Thomas

 

[soop]

If the block was cracked and in such bad shape, they obviously don't need it as part of the deal. So where is the motor that they pulled? Can they produce evidence of the damage?

I don't deal with the dealer unless absolutely necessary. Example, I took a previous car to 3 dealerships to diagnose a problem with it. None could figure it out. So I thought about it and determined that it must be a temperature sensor. Went to Lordco and bought the sensor, took 5 minutes to put it in , problem solved.

These guys are trained on how to operate a tester and live on service bulletins. Obviously there are the good ones and it can take a while to find them. When you do, look after them and show up on a Friday afternoon with a 12 pak for them once in a while.

 

[CamellionCat]

hey soop, what was your car doing before the sensor???

yeah can you remember what your car was doing before you changed the sensor??????? i mean the temp how was it reading??????

Marvin M.

 

[doodaa]

Not to mention all the junk mail he's going to be receiving from that dealer. I didn't even fall for their "the ball joints are almost broken. We can fix them for $1100" BS when my sway bar end links needed replacing. Now they send me page after page of stuff in the mail. Has to be from the one time I took the car into their service dept for diags... it's the only time I've done any business with them at all other than parts and the parts guy doesn't ask for name and address.

 

[Robinson]

Re: yesssssss he did

its more like he got bent over and got done, by the dealer.

with no vaseline

 

[soop]

Marvin. Yeah, I think that the car was idleing roughly after warmed up and would almost stall in stop and go.