Forum:
I got my dream sporty 2 weeks ago. It is now making a bit of engine noise, and smoking quite a bit, also useing a lot of oil. I have to top up every 75miles. I had it checked by a mate who said it was down on one cylinder and may be a valve guide? Now took her to the local garage who say I need a new engine. They want £700 to mend her. Im female and should no more but i dont. ANY HELP.
No I didn't buy her for the school runs, I work on a farm and do a lot of off road driving.
P.S. Shes a 93 ELK I
Get a second/third opinion as
Get a second/third opinion as you have two wildly differing ideas on what's going wrong. It is possible that a valve guide has failed but that may not always account for the noise - A new engine is always the best option for most garages as it's the easiest "cure-all" and the warranties dont fall back on them, but the rebuilders, so the buck passes to them so more burocracy for you to deal with. But the positive is that with a rebuild, you know everything is as it should be. What is the milage, BTW?
Please let us know how you get on, and we can take it from there.
Dave with a Sporty
Dave with a Sporty
sporty
Thanks for the help.
He didn't put any oil down so will try that. In answer to the other things, It only smokes on acceleration and the rattle only starts at 3000 revs the engine sounds sweet under this and she has only done 75K
Sporty
From what you say I would be almost certain that your problem is with the valves and valve gear.
I don't know for sure but I would expect to pay around £250 for a reconditioned head and about £100 labour (all plus vat)
You may be able to get your head rebuilt for less, but that means the car is off the road longer.
engine
Its probably cheaper to put in a second hand engine from an applause
Using oil
When your mate checked it out what exactly did he do?
if he did a compression test did he do it twice?
Ideally when you check compression you should first find out if the compression is lower on one cylinder than the rest, which your mate has identified, then you should do it again after adding a small amount of oil to the cylinder, if the pressure goes up it is a bore/piston ring problem, if it stays the same then it is a valve/cylinder head problem.
also you say its smoking a bit, is this mainly under acceleration, or does it do it all the time?
if its mainly under acceleration then your mate is probably right and its a valve stem problem, if it happens all the time then the problem is more serious.
Also you mentioned a noise, can you be more specific?