Need a New Car? Nope, Just a New Engine!
Image source: motoringfile
Engine Repower is a new (as far as I can tell) service that gives car owners the option of replacing their old, worn out engine with a rebuilt engine of the same vintage instead of simply buying a new car or repairing specific problems. When a first saw this page, I was very interested, as I am a proponent of keeping your car as long as possible to reduce wasteful manufacturing processes, even in the face of promises of lower emissions made by newer cars.For more on repowering, follow the jump!
Here’s what Engine Repower has to say about their service:
Technology and auto manufacturing have advanced dramatically in the past two decades. Cars and trucks last longer. Paint is better. Bodies are more corrosion resistant. Interior materials are more durable, and even suspension and other components last longer. So when an engine “dies,” it does not have to be the end of your vehicle. When a car or truck suffers major engine damage, the first response and reaction of many consumers is to buy a new or used vehicle. Sometimes disposing of your current vehicle might make sense, but often it’s simply not necessary.
Obviously, being an advertisement, they are very high on themselves, but they do make some good points. When cars die, it seems it is most often due to accidents or blown engines. Very rarely do cars rust so badly or generally devolve to a point of undrivability before the engine begins to have trouble. Also, one of the biggest issues with emissions from old vehicles is that those vehicles have fallen out of spec and are no longer getting the best fuel economy or releasing the least emissions.
The Engine Repowering Council seems to focus on domestic vehicles, but using their find-a-shop feature, it’s likely that you can find someone to rebuild an engine of almost any make. These engines almost always come with warranties and, in my opinion (as someone who has worked at a shop in the past), will be rebuilt as carefully as anything else coming from that shop. So, if you’re considering this, pick a shop you know and trust, and that offers a good warranty.
While the service is certainly not ideal (you can’t just put a newer, cleaner engine in an old car), the ability to put life and reliability back into an old car is about as close as you can get to recycling and reusing in the automotive world.
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Let’s hope that these engines are more Green Power, environmentally friendly
http://www.ascienceportal.com
Ben, your articles rock! Where do you find this stuff?
I suppose I don’t need to worry about my 120K transmission being replaced, or electrical, or the AC that blows hot, I just need a new engine. I can feel better about the environment as I’m broken down along the side of the road.
The idea seems fine at first, but older cars are often missing vital safty equipment such as airbags, ABS and ESP. If we all followed their example, faltalities as a result of accidents would be going up instead of down. No matter how green I am, i tend to put human life before oil consumption..
Just my humble opinion
I’ve been working in a parts store with an in-house machine shop for about three years. We’ve been rebuilding engines for about 35 years at this location, and show no signs of slowing down. Most repair facilities with a technician worth his tools will be able to install a remanufactured/new engine in any car for a relatively low price, but from my experience, it’s NOT the engines that put the nail in the coffin. For me it was a transmission, the entire suspension, deteriorating interiors, and all of the little things, like a $500 fuel pump, $150 injectors (of which there were six), and an aging electrical system that ended my late model van’s life.
Ask any mechanic, and they’ll tell you that the hardest system in the modern car to work on, now-a-days, is the electronic system. With every car being controlled by computers and monitored by highly specialized sensors, it becomes harder and harder every day for your average mechanic to diagnose the most common automotive symptoms. That’s why I’ve stopped giving advice. I don’t want to be held liable for someone replacing a $500 part that doesn’t fix their issue.
This might seem tangential, but I am just trying to show that replacing a motor in a car doesn’t garantee that an equally expensive, equally detrimental issue might arise.
Excellent idea! I Have done this and got another 100,000 miles or more out of a cheap used auto. Sure beats the cost of new. I support the idea great stuff Thanks!
Well thats what I did. Put a 2004 engine with 3k miles on it into a 1996 car that was fine minus the blown engine. Same size 4.6L so even though the years were pretty far apart, it went right in. Put a new/rebuilt trans in and your set!
Check this out. It would be cool to swap out for one of these MYT engines.
http://www.angellabsllc.com/
This is where I found out about it:
http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=i3zejocqn8
Neat stuff.
this is great! absolutely wonderful news. im tired of passing the local scrapyard- (on a tram) and seeing worthwhile cars being crushed. trouble is its not new news. what about the gold seal/silver seal programmes that ran in the uk putting reconditioned engines in leyland/bmc cars way back when?(70’s?)
problem with this idea is that investing too much money in a older car is risky business. If a few months later you are in a car wreck that totals your car,the insurance company will not give you the value you just invested in it… they will equate your valued to standard market value usually without consideration of the new motor. So going green may be noble but not exactly financially wise.