Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: clark2 Feb 8 2005, 10:34 PM

I am trying to talk my dad out of rebuilding our motor 73 1.7 because I know it will be at least a year before he gets that thing done. Anyone ever hear of this company, seems like 1,255.00 for a complete rebuild is pretty cheap am I missing something?

http://www.importmotor.com/Store/ProductDetail.asp?ProductID=425&MakeID=10&CategoryID=66&ModelID=7&BasketID=&DealerID=108&YearSelected=1973

Posted by: Aaron Cox Feb 8 2005, 10:41 PM

R U N>..... FAST! run!!!!!

Posted by: ws91420 Feb 8 2005, 10:52 PM

Parts for my stock rebuild cost more than that. nuff said

Posted by: clark2 Feb 8 2005, 10:56 PM

I figured it was too good to be true, but they sell engines on E-Bay and had a good rating.

Posted by: anthony Feb 8 2005, 11:01 PM

They are probably using used parts and doing the bare minimum to "rebuild" the engine. You probably get some valves ground and some new rings for $1300.

Posted by: seanery Feb 9 2005, 07:27 AM

if you look hard enough and search that company name here, you'll find some horror stories.

Posted by: skline Feb 9 2005, 07:33 AM

There are a few horror stories, but read them carefully, some of the people posting negative have never bought an engine from them. The guy selling them is the previous owner of SIR. They were a VW remanufacturing plant that was down the street from Rimco back in the 70's and 80's. The guy is in a wheel chair now and wanting to retire. Very nice guy. He has all the work done for him at a plant in Placentia. These are the same guys that used to work for him when he was in Santa Ana. They also had a big write up about head reconditioning in VW magazine back in the day. I guess the only way to find out, would be to contact someone who has bought from them. Check their Ebay feedback and contact some of the people that left them feedback. If it is important to you, that is what I would do. Then you will get real info from real owners. Not heresay.

Just trying to be fair.

Posted by: anthony Feb 9 2005, 11:11 AM

QUOTE (skline @ Feb 9 2005, 06:33 AM)

Just trying to be fair.

Fair is fine but when someone advertises an engine "rebuild" for 1/3rd the price of parts alone, you've got to know that they are cutting major corners. You are going to get what you pay for.

In general, one sholdn't buy a rebuild unless they get a complete build list of parts and the machining services done to the engine.

Posted by: lapuwali Feb 9 2005, 11:47 AM

QUOTE (anthony @ Feb 9 2005, 09:11 AM)

QUOTE (skline @ Feb 9 2005, 06:33 AM) Just trying to be fair.  ;) Fair is fine but when someone advertises an engine "rebuild" for 1/3rd the price of parts alone, you've got to know that they are cutting major corners. You are going to get what you pay for. In general, one sholdn't buy a rebuild unless they get a complete build list of parts and the machining services done to the engine.

I've never dealt with these guys, but to continue the fairness line...

$1300 in parts alone, as quoted, is retail pricing. I'm sure these guys buy their stuff in bulk at a significant discount. So, it's not particularly fair to say 1/3 of the parts costs. I'm sure you're going to get the cheapest parts possible from these guys, and there will no doubt be a lot of parts reused where other builders would buy new. Budget is budget, after all. No one complains about red beard's $750 transmission "refurbishing", even though the costs are mostly cut by reusing parts where possible. Everyone complains when a mass engine rebuilder does this, though. I don't quite understand the logic there. If a part is still well within wear limits, and reusing it would save a significant chunk of money, I don't see any problem with reusing it.

I've been tooling around in air-cooled VW land these past couple of weeks, and I'm astonished at how much cheaper everything is. Rebuilt transaxles for $350 (with testimonials from people on boards like this one saying the quality is good). These import motors guys, along with GEX and some other names that have been bandied about here in the past sell lots of engines, so presumably not everyone thinks their stuff is junk. It's almost certainly not top quality, but it seems to at least be acceptable. Economies of scale really DO work, and it's quite possible some of these mass engine rebuilders have built shops that can turn out working engines for substantially less than any race-quality shop could dream about. VW guys also seem to be perfectly happy with engines that been rebuilding every 50K miles.

Say I have a 914 with an engine that really needs a rebuild, but I don't have $6000 to throw at Jake to build me an engine right now. If I buy the parts over time, I can swing it over the course of a year, and do the rebuild myself to standards I will find acceptable for $4000 (no Nickies). In the meantime, I can buy one of these $1300 engines, slot it in the car, and drive the car during that year while I'm rebuilding engine. In the end, I've spent less than $6000 and had a running car the whole time. Alternatively, if I do have the dosh to hand to Jake, it will still be six months given his waiting list, so I can buy one of these for that six months for a small incremental fee over the cost of the top quality rebuild. As bad as these engines might be, I'll bet they're better than buying some $500 used engine off Ebay that's been sitting in the corner of someone's garage untouched for 5 years.

Posted by: bd1308 Feb 9 2005, 01:13 PM

Posted by: anthony Feb 9 2005, 02:31 PM

lapuwali, they may be able to pull it off but I'm still skeptical of the the quality of the end result. I just looked at the link and went through the details. The only new parts are:

valve guides
valve seats
new forged pistons*
main, rod, & cam bearings
gaskets and oil seals

Everything else is used/refurbished. Do you trust them to refurbish lifters and a cam? To get the $300 core charge you need to supply them with a 2L engine (worth more than $300) and you get in return a 1.8L engine with a 2L crank and rods. So granted "1/3 of parts" isn't correct. They are giving you about $300 in new parts in your rebuilt engine.



*They don't mention cylinders so I assume they are used. Also, they probably don't really give you "forged" pistons. No mention of rings either.

Posted by: tat2dphreak Feb 9 2005, 02:32 PM

well said lapuwali,


but a search should be done, I seem to remember someone here falling on the grenade and buying one of these... they didn't get it for a long time and had to go through a bunch of stuff to finally get it... and then it was DOA... my memory may be failing... but I seem to remember 1st hand experience being bad,bad,bad from these guys in particular... a deep search should render more details.

I agree with your thinking 110% though, I just don't if these are the guys you want to even get a temp motor from...

Posted by: Brando Feb 9 2005, 02:35 PM

Import Motor is actually not a *bad* company to buy aircooleds from. A few years ago I was going to buy a 2.2+ from them for my ghia. Lost the car before I could get the engine. So I called and talked to the guy who runs the show. Appearantly they have been doing work with aircooleds for a very long time. The guy who runs the show even wrote with some help the guide, in essence, on rebuilding type 2 and 3 engines (i have it at home, will give the book details when I get there).

Most of the internals on your engine they will replace. Actually, the way it works is you buy an engine from them, install it, and send them yours as a core. It's a bit more if you don't send them (core charge) but their worksmanship is probably on par with Rimco. If you go to their website you can see a listing of all the parts that are new in the engine you buy from them. If you buy an oversized engine (not to stock) you're getting more newer parts and some other addons. As he had explained to me, the engine is 99% gone through. You save money by buying some parts that are used but in excellent shape. The parts they reuse from cores are only used if they are in premo shape.

But then again, that's from the horse's mouth. Or horse's ass, if he was lying. I can't attest 100% for that, only saying what I was told.

Best part is, you get a warranty and if you're local, they can send someone out to deliver it in a day or so. Right to your doorstep.

Posted by: seanery Feb 9 2005, 02:39 PM

What I remember reading was...what the seller got, wasn't what was promised AND shipping company wanted COD to get it out of the truck when shipping was already paid to seller. Then a long hassle ensued to try to get the situation fixed. There may have been more from that buyer, too.

That's enough for me. There are good vendors out there. No need to waste your time and $ on a bad one.

Posted by: Jake Raby Feb 9 2005, 02:39 PM

Damn, that price would almost buy a set of heads for one of my engines!

Do the damn job yourself, rip it apart and I'll sell you what it takes to do it my way at the type4store...

My wait list is now approaching 9.5 months

Posted by: jd74914 Feb 9 2005, 02:54 PM

QUOTE

Do the damn job yourself, rip it apart and I'll sell you what it takes to do it my way at the type4store...

Thats what I'm planning on doing this summer

Posted by: bd1308 Feb 9 2005, 03:18 PM

i'm planning to just wrap any broken/cracked parts with duct tape.....doin it MY way

Posted by: lapuwali Feb 9 2005, 04:29 PM

QUOTE (anthony @ Feb 9 2005, 12:31 PM)

Everything else is used/refurbished. Do you trust them to refurbish lifters and a cam? To get the $300 core charge you need to supply them with a 2L engine (worth more than $300) and you get in return a 1.8L engine with a 2L crank and rods. So granted "1/3 of parts" isn't correct. They are giving you about $300 in new parts in your rebuilt engine. *They don't mention cylinders so I assume they are used. Also, they probably don't really give you "forged" pistons. No mention of rings either.

I didn't catch the part about the 2L core being required. That would be a deal killer. I also didn't understand this was exchange. Changes the picture quite a bit.

Brando, there's a BIG difference between Type1/2/3 and Type 4 in parts pricing. There's one shop I've seen that advertises a NEW (as in new cases & crank as well as new P&Cs, heads, etc) Type 1 outright for $1700 or thereabouts. This sounds mighty impressive until you see the retail price for a new Type 1 case is under $200. As I said, VW stuff is insanely cheap. There are even new Type 1 aluminum (stock is magnesium) cases available for $300.

Posted by: anthony Feb 11 2005, 03:51 PM

It's at the top of the page under the core charge. It says it's $300 back for a 2L engine. It doesn't specify what you get back if you give them a 1.7 or 1.8. It sounds like this engine with $300 in new parts would cost about $2000 plus whatever they ding you on shipping. I think most people would be better served by buying a known good running engine from another club member as a temporary solution or building Jake's $2500 kit if they are DIY kind of person.