Sometimes a costly repair is the least expensive option
When it comes to engines, would you prefer to swap in a new one or buy a new car? If changing the engine, is this something you’d do yourself?
Dear Ask a Mechanic,
I just found out my ’05 Civic’s engine is seized. My engine overheated last week and the car came to a stop, and now the mechanic said it’s not worth repairing.
An engine swap would cost me around $1,800 including labour. I called a scrap yard and they quoted $450 for a used engine.
The car is in excellent condition and literally everything else works perfectly.
What are my options?
Civic Duty
Assuming, as you say, that the rest of the car is in great shape, it’s worth doing the engine swap.
The alternative is to scrap it and buy another car.
Unfortunately, used vehicle prices remain quite high, and you could end up with a fresh batch of different things to have to deal with.
At least with your Civic, you have a known quantity.
This leaves with you with the choice of how to change the engine: DIY or paying to have it done.
A factor to consider with paying the shop to both supply and replace the engine (versus doing it yourself, or providing your own used part) is that at the very minimum, if they install an engine that they’ve sourced and it’s for whatever reason not OK, that problem is theirs, not yours.
It does happen, albeit rarely. Most used engines come with some kind of warranty, and you should establish what this warranty is and what it covers before committing to having the repair done.
Who’s responsible for the labour if it fails under warranty? What’s the duration? What’s required to maintain the warranty (i.e. proof of oil changes)?
Note that you may be able to buy a longer warranty for a relatively small additional cost, as some auto wreckers provide this option to the installing shop when they purchase it.
Going from six months coverage to one year might cost, say $150-$250. (Or, it could be a lot more.) It’s worth asking, anyway.
Know that if you’re buying it yourself, a motor bought directly from an auto wrecker will, almost without exception, come only with an exchange warranty; if it’s bad upon installation or fails within the warranty period (for a covered reason), they’ll supply you with another, comparable used engine in exchange for the faulty one.
Labour, materials, coolant, oil — all that is required to do the job again, is your problem.
If you supplied it to a shop to install, don’t expect that business to eat any of those costs.
What might give you additional motivation to cover your backside with a warranty is that the 1.7-litre engines in those cars were known for head gasket failures, so the chances of getting one that’s bad, or could go bad, within its lifetime, is much higher than in an average car.
Regardless, when replacing the motor, have the timing belt and water pump changed at the minimum.
A new water pump may be required for the warranty anyway, but you’d be foolish not to change it and the belt even if it isn’t.
It’s far easier to do while the engine is out of the car.
As for how long the car could last if you were to spend the money on this repair, you don’t mention what’s on it now, but I’ve seen plenty of that generation of Civic deep into the 300,000-kilometre range on them, and many well cared for examples are around showing far more than that.