Engine went boom

[Tetleyy]

Hi people,

So on saturday my engine decided to poo itself (2017 leon 300 manual) and is now making a horrible noise, had about 15 people tell me its rod knock. So its not looking good.

I have the car booked in next week to get diagnosed as to the full extent of the damage. I'm a bit concern of the potential cost this could rise to in repairs.
Has anyone had an engine rebuild in the uk and got a rough cost of what i should be looking at? I know it entirely depends on the condition of each individual case but even a rough estimate would be appreciated.

Alternatively has anyone had an engine swap done and how much did it cost you? Around £2-2.5k seems to be the going rate for an engine nowadays but not sure on how much fitting would be.

As for my car i caught the noise pretty early and it was maybe driven another 2 miles and has not been driven since. Is this in my favour as to how badly its gone, or is it completely game over once you hear the rod knocking?

Any words of encouragement would be appreciated, I'm genuinely gutted about this.

P.s This came very unexpected, only had the car 6 months and its only covered 36k miles and has a good service record.

 

[Jokke]

Well if could be several things besides a rod knock. Rod knocks are unusual, caused mainly by bad oil or faulty bearings. But if it is rod knocks I dont think you have to swap the engine, new bearings and polish the crank. I have no idé about the uk labour cost tho.

 

[British_Grapher]

Hi people,

So on saturday my engine decided to poo itself (2017 leon 300 manual) and is now making a horrible noise, had about 15 people tell me its rod knock. So its not looking good.

I have the car booked in next week to get diagnosed as to the full extent of the damage. I'm a bit concern of the potential cost this could rise to in repairs.
Has anyone had an engine rebuild in the uk and got a rough cost of what i should be looking at? I know it entirely depends on the condition of each individual case but even a rough estimate would be appreciated.

Alternatively has anyone had an engine swap done and how much did it cost you? Around £2-2.5k seems to be the going rate for an engine nowadays but not sure on how much fitting would be.

As for my car i caught the noise pretty early and it was maybe driven another 2 miles and has not been driven since. Is this in my favour as to how badly its gone, or is it completely game over once you hear the rod knocking?

Any words of encouragement would be appreciated, I'm genuinely gutted about this.

P.s This came very unexpected, only had the car 6 months and its only covered 36k miles and has a good service record.

Sorry to jump in on this, did you find out what it was?
I've got a very similar issue and the garage the car was in have told me they don't want to work on it anymore. Ive got it booked in elsewhere and don't really want to drive it.

 

[Mr Pig]

Sorry to jump in on this, did you find out what it was?
I've got a very similar issue and the garage the car was in have told me they don't want to work on it anymore. I've got it booked in elsewhere and don't really want to drive it.

You could get it transported. I'd be reluctant to drive it as well. Years ago my timing chain failed and when the breakdown truck arrived and I told the driver the timing chain was gone and not to try and start it. First thing the ******** did was get in the car and try to start it!

 

[British_Grapher]

You could get it transported. I'd be reluctant to drive it as well. Years ago my timing chain failed and when the breakdown truck arrived and I told the driver the timing chain was gone and not to try and start it. First thing the ******** did was get in the car and try to start it!

Ouch! Unfortunately I can't get this repaired. It needs a new engine. What a financially great month this has been so far

 

[nd-photo.nl]

Ah man that sucks

 

[Mr Pig]

Ouch! Unfortunately I can't get this repaired. It needs a new engine. What a financially great month this has been so far

The annoying thing was that I knew the chain was in trouble. I was trying to figure out how I could get it fixed affordably when it let go. The car was a Nissan Primera GT. I sold it at a Nissan/Datsun fanatic I knew who rebuilt and restored all kinds of Datsun/Nissan cars. He owned two cars that were never sold in the UK. He repaired the engine in my GT and sold it. It was an interference engine and the head just went in the bin!

I'd be tempted to just sell the car as it is. Sore I know but a lot can go wrong with an engine swap. My brother got an engine swap on his car and it never ran right again.

 

[NotApplicable]

How many miles did these cars have that broke their timing chain?
The reason for asking is that I had mine done as a precaution against it happening. I had just clocked 98000 miles (c. 156K km) and read something somewhere about 160K km is a reasonable lifetime for a timing chain when the chain on my bicycle broke on me and I ripped big gouges in the back of my leg - blood everywhere! I took it as an omen to get it done.

2015 Cupra 280 btw. Well, not really a 280 more like a 400 for the last 60,000 miles.

 

[Mr Pig]

How many miles did these cars have that broke their timing chain?
The reason for asking is that I had mine done as a precaution against it happening. I had just clocked 98000 miles (c. 156K km) and read something somewhere about 160K km is a reasonable lifetime for a timing chain when the chain on my bicycle broke on me and I ripped big gouges in the back of my leg - blood everywhere! I took it as an omen to get it done.

I don't know about VW timing chains but on my Primera, and a lot of other engines, you often get warning. Rattle on startup which might develop into the odd rattle picking away from idle, that sort of thing. They don't just break, there is a chain of events. On the Primera the first step was oil starvation. Which was easier to cause that you might think. The chain was lubricated by picking up oil from the pan. The problem was that if the oil level was towards the lower end of the hatched area on the dipstick it was too low for the chain, despite being within what should be the acceptable range. If the chain was not lubricated properly the plastic chain guides wore quickly. Once they wore enough the tensioner could not take up the slack and you got rattles. The final step was a bit of plastic breaking off a guide, jamming the chain and causing it to snap.

The failure mode for VW engines will be different but there will be one.

 

[NotApplicable]

I don't know about VW timing chains but on my Primera, and a lot of other engines, you often get warning. Rattle on startup which might develop into the odd rattle picking away from idle, that sort of thing. They don't just break, there is a chain of events. On the Primera the first step was oil starvation. Which was easier to cause that you might think. The chain was lubricated by picking up oil from the pan. The problem was that if the oil level was towards the lower end of the hatched area on the dipstick it was too low for the chain, despite being within what should be the acceptable range. If the chain was not lubricated properly the plastic chain guides wore quickly. Once they wore enough the tensioner could not take up the slack and you got rattles. The final step was a bit of plastic breaking off a guide, jamming the chain and causing it to snap.

The failure mode for VW engines will be different but there will be one.

Well, after changing, I no longer have that little "tk-tk-tk-tk" sound at idle (sounded chain/cam/valve related to me) and it all runs a bit smoother and quieter.

 

[Mr Pig]

Well, after changing, I no longer have that little "tk-tk-tk-tk" sound at idle (sounded chain/cam/valve related to me) and it all runs a bit smoother and quieter.

Nice piece of mind.