Anyone know this company, Complete rebuild for 1,255.00 Options

[clark2]

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/ProductDe...arSelected=1973

[lapuwali]

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.