1999 Vulcan Bad Engine

First things first, thanks for reading this and the knowledge and opinions you may have. I am absolutely not mechanically inclined. Certainly not to this level. This truck has the original motor - 3.0L V6 OHV 12V FFV.

Engine Light came on a couple days ago when I headed into work. Figured I would make the drive and have it coded on the way home since I only work 6 miles from home and all city street and the truck had not been having any issues. Two miles in I said, "nah, I better get it home".

Engine had a ticking sound that reminded me of my 82 Riviera that had a rocker go bad or something. I get the truck home and leave it running and lift the hood to look for anything obvious (twig caught up in the fan blade, oil spurting out, etc.) but found nothing and while I stood there the engine died. Start it back up and it runs about 20 seconds and dies again.

So I have it towed to the shop my wife and I have been dealing with for about 25 years or more. It has changed hands in the last few years but they have still done good work for us. They just replaced the front suspension about a year or so ago, steering knuckle, upper/lower control arms etc and did a great job. Also replaced the radiator such when it failed.

This truck was running fine and had no lack of power climbing the steep hills in the Seattle area (Renton primarily). Heck, the night before I zipped right up one of the long hills on my way home like it was a brand new truck with no issues and no light coming on.

I go in yesterday to get the prognosis and he says, "I left you a message. Yeah, the motors done. It is surprising because those motors rarely seem to go bad, especially with miles that low (132k). We saved an oil sample back there. Not sure what happened but there are metal shavings in it. We could get it to run for a minute or two but it just dies again and is quite loud now."

Obviously I know this isn't good but I asked "So what are we talking about for cost to replace it?" He basically said it is tough to find them with low miles on them because these motors simply don't go bad very often. He found one used with about 107k on it. We would be looking at about $5100 for the motor and install, probably around another $500ish for anything else they might put on during the process.

Now I don't know jack about jack but that seems insanely high. Heck, I can buy the same truck with the same engine (though not extended cab) for less than $4000 locally (50k more miles but still). Pricing the motor online, the retail shops like O'Reilly have re-manufactured ones for right around $2,000 and with a 3 year warranty on them.

Am I right thinking this is WAY over the top as far as price? I mean, even at whatever they charge for shop time that seems like it would have to be around 20 hours of shop time or so.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks

Well, he is right about a few things. The 3.0 is not known for failures, although it can happen. That's one reason I like to have mechanical oil pressure gauges, they can warn you about something about to go wrong.

He is also right that there isn't much in your area. I searched car-part and found six engines within 100 miles of Renton, three are blown, the others are all north of 150K miles. To go lower in miles the price starts going up steeply. To get a 120K mile engine you are looking at $2k for the engine, plug travelling almost 400 miles round trip. Getting it shipped in has to be figured into that price.

Kitsap Truck and Auto in Port Orchard has a 188K mile engine for only $900. As a shop I'd be wary installing something with that many miles.

If you can get a reman for the same price as a low mile used that may be the better bet, but I don't entirely trust chain store remans. I've seen too many problems with them. Things done cheaply and wrong.

Thanks for the response. I went down and talked to him about it today on the way home. Any other time I have had an engine go bad there was no real investment in the vehicle. Back in the days of the $300 or $500 "beater", if you got a year out of it you considered it good. It wasn't something you were going to put money into anyways.

This time though it was different. In the last 12 months I have already put around $3000-$3500 into it getting the cooling system, front suspension and steering replaced and we questioned at the time if it was "worth it". At the time, the shop didn't feel it wasn't worth it and even said then that "the biggest thing would be the motor but that would be unlikely from the looks of it". So we did the full brake job and put new tires on as well.

And now here we sit in this "unlikely" spot. My concern was what kind of warranty it would be on a used motor. I get the idea of a warranty on a reman from a retailer but seriously, if a shop gets and installs a used engine, and it goes bad 9-12 months later are they going to just say, "Well, it was used, it was a risk" and I am out $5,000? That is why I went and talked to him. I have all the faith in the world in the old owners but they had to sell due to health reasons and sold it to their lead mechanic. I don't know them as well so.... so I talked to them.

He said they offer their standard 2 year warranty on anything like that they install. He said for engines they stick to ones they have had good dealings with in the past and pretty much just use Jasper and ATX (think that was the other one). He said that what he has found with retailer remans is that they will cover or replace the motor itself, but not the labor and that is the larger part of it not to mention the hassle of dealing with it.

He was still pretty surprised as he said this is only the 2nd or 3rd one he has seen go bad, especially on such low miles and said that if at any part of the thought process it was "I will replace the motor and then sell it", forget about it. I will never get what I put into it. I assured him the point was to have this be my truck. Without the previous money put in I might have considered just junking it but even if I wrote off the $3500 spent and went with another $11,000 truck (what I paid for this originally) I still have no guarantees what it is like. If I invest in this, the only real cost going forward would be a possible transmission. It is a 5sp manual so he kind of scoffed that the cost of that isn't a big deal. The engine is where the money is.

So again, thanks for the input. We don't have the money for it but the "bank of mom" has been helpful in the past. Hopefully she will be again...... or I will be biking or walking the 6 miles to work each day LOL.

Good lord 3500 for the cooling system and front suspension. Seems steep to me. Of course I do 99% of the work on my vehicles and don't know what shops are charging nowdays.

Don't write a check to that outfit! OMG

I agree with sticking to remans. Jasper is a good name, but price is always a factor.

The shop is right that at this point all the big money left to spend on this truck is the engine, so it may not be a bad idea. Especially if the body and frame are in good shape.

I had a Jasper in my Pontiac for 20 some yearsonly had 60,000 +- miles on it the oil never got dark.

I don't know but I would ask to see these metal shavings. Did I miss read? I thought they were talking about fixing the old engine or finding a used one for the numbers mentioned.

adsm08 said:

I agree with sticking to remans. Jasper is a good name, but price is always a factor.

The shop is right that at this point all the big money left to spend on this truck is the engine, so it may not be a bad idea. Especially if the body and frame are in good shape.

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Denisefwd93 said:

I had a Jasper in my Pontiac for 20 some yearsonly had 60,000 +- miles on it the oil never got dark.

I don't know but I would ask to see these metal shavings. Did I miss read? I thought they were talking about fixing the old engine or finding a used one for the numbers mentioned.

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You misread. If the engine is full of shavings there is no rebuilding that in the field. The options were a junk yard unit, or a reman.

Also, don't look at those numbers and think about them in our context here in southern PA. This guy lives in a suburb of Seattle, minimum wage out there is close to what I was making as a master tech back here. For every thousand dollars on that estimate, we would probably only be spending $500.