Preventing imminent engine failure

[XS650]

djlinux, Can you actually hear the piston pin knocking?

If there aren't any other signs of a piston pin problem other than the Mercury mech saying there is a problem, you should be OK.

 

[Drew99GT]

Originally Posted By: Billy007
Drive the car until the engine fails. You may be able to get it to 200k miles. When the engine fails recycle the car, and get yourself a new car. Don't spend $6500 on a car with that kind of mileage.


Best advice here.

Run a high mileage oil like Maxlife 5w-30 for 5,000 mile intervals. I bet it gets well past 200,000 miles.

 

[BuickGN]

Originally Posted By: Drew99GT
Originally Posted By: Billy007
Drive the car until the engine fails. You may be able to get it to 200k miles. When the engine fails recycle the car, and get yourself a new car. Don't spend $6500 on a car with that kind of mileage.


Best advice here.

Run a high mileage oil like Maxlife 5w-30 for 5,000 mile intervals. I bet it gets well past 200,000 miles.


37,000 more miles with the piston pin failing is asking for a lot. That is assuming it's been correctly diagnosed.

I had a girlfriend drive to Vegas from Bakersfield (260 miles) to see me, she said her car was making a funny noise during the last few miles. I immediately identified it was a piston/pin issue. She insisted on driving it home so I decided to drive the GN in front of her (didn't want debris or oil hitting my car) to make sure she got back ok. We hit the onramp to the 15 and I look in my rearview and see a fireball. I popped the hood, had a 2-liter of diet coke and managed to put the fire out. These things can go at any time.

 

[joel95ex]

i would run a compression check or just run a couple cycles of ARX with dino and see how much oil is used after that. if the rings are indeed bad, then an alternative to a complete rebuild is just getting it re-ring-ed. on 4 cyl. hondas, you can drop the oil pan, remove head, remove and re-ring the pistons an re-install....all while leaving the engine in the carof course labor is a little bit high since you have to raise the car up to check clearances when bolting on the rod caps. of course this is assuming the cyl walls are ok....i have heard that some ford retain the cross-hash marks for a long time. oops..just saw you thought there is a bad pin.....if that is the case, ARX, different oil and run til it dies.... nyou could also consider sourcing an engine from a wrecked car... that would be a LOT cheaper than rebuilding the same one.....ANYTHING is cheaper than a new car.....

 

[Ken2]

One more voice here...what are the symptoms that suggest wrist pin trouble? Is there any other way it could cause oil burning other than an scored cylinder wall? Was this viewed with a borescope?

In this case, fill it with very high viscosity oil to quiet it and sell the car.

Otherwise, oil burning is likely caused by the rings stuck with carbon. Auto-Rx will clean these and reduce oil consumption as well as improve compression.

 

[BuickGN]

Originally Posted By: Ken2
One more voice here...what are the symptoms that suggest wrist pin trouble? Is there any other way it could cause oil burning other than an scored cylinder wall? Was this viewed with a borescope?

In this case, fill it with very high viscosity oil to quiet it and sell the car.

Otherwise, oil burning is likely caused by the rings stuck with carbon. Auto-Rx will clean these and reduce oil consumption as well as improve compression.


Come on, haven't we been over this? Thick oil to quiet the engine in order to rip someone off? Just a little dishonest, don't you think?

 

[Nickdfresh]

Yeah, pretty scummy I think...

And I'd bet a lot that the Mercury Tech was incompetent, or full of B.S....