When it is time for an engine to have major repairs, vehicle owners are faced with tough choices such as whether to rebuild/repair the current engine or replace it with a used, remanufactured or a new engine. Engine replacement, more so with brand-new ones, is often very expensive and beyond many vehicle owners’ budgets, which is why the choices boil down to short block/remanufactured engines, used engines or a total engine overhaul. Most used engines are temporary fixes at best, since the only buy vehicle owners a little bit more time. The majority of used engines eventually develop issues that need them to be rebuilt or replaced.
Nowadays, remanufactured engines are common alternatives for most vehicle owners due to their ready availability at affordable prices. The affordability coupled with the increased demand has led to a sharp drop in custom rebuilt engines especially in machine shops and repair facilities. Quality remanufactured engines are good value for money, especially since most of them come with up to 1 year warranty. However, vehicle owners still have plenty of reason to consider doing their own engine work.
Most vehicle owners are aware that rebuilding engines is way cheaper than replacing them. Vehicle owners can save between 20{9c6a8ebadae6c95437aca685ccca3141bdaa337e4a31ae6e166fd704c91b60c2}-50{9c6a8ebadae6c95437aca685ccca3141bdaa337e4a31ae6e166fd704c91b60c2} of what it would cost them to replace their engines assuming the current engine is very buildable i.e. has no serious damage and is not excessively worn out and the machine work needed for proper restoration is minimal. The majority of the savings realised come from the labour needed to tear down the engine and reassemble it after all the needed machine work is done. Also, engine rebuilding needs very minimal tools, since in most instances all that’s required is a ring compressor, Ring expander, torque wrench, feeler gauges and normal hand tools. Any extra machine work required can be outsourced at local machine shops.
In order to fit oversize rings and pistons, engines with worn out cylinders will need to be honed or bored. Besides the more simple tasks, anything complex such as line boring, head resurfacing and crank refinishing will need to be outsourced to local machine shops. Extra control over the quality of work and parts that go into the engine is another reason why vehicle owners should choose to handle their own engine work, besides cost considerations. Quality is a very vital aspect, which cannot be well controlled when vehicle owners buy engines from outside sources. While it is true that there are plenty of top-quality engines in the market, vehicle owners should never have to discover the shortcomings of their new engines the hard way.