Bassoctopus

make sure they've been greased on any car over 3 years old. Or the chances are they're fecked and you'll need to find a grand +

lower

Any car forum will have lots of posts about engine failures because people usually find their way to forums for help when they have a problem.

There is certainly not a massive number of engine failures on here at any mileage, possibly with the exception of the 08-09 cars and i suspect that problem isn't as big as it appears to be on here.

If you're worried about an over rev in you car's previous history, change the valve stem retainers. They can get damaged in an over rev situation and then cause a dropped valve with catastrophic damage. Changing the bearings cannot do any harm from a longevity perspective either.

There are loads of high mileage S2k's in the US that have no issues.

Turtle

Depends on what level of power you're expecting and how the car's been used. Don't expect to be near original power levels @ 200k even if the engine is still healthy enough then.

-Brian.

Turtle

I don't get ant normal garage to do any work for me so no idea on cost. "Mostly non Vtec" is irrelvant really. I'd case out engines used on track a lot, but aside from that it doesn't matter.

-Brian.

Turtle

Unless you have very expensive ultrasonic test equipment to crack test the retainers in situ you can't really check them without removing them. By the time you can see anything by eye, usually one of the other valves will have already dropped...

-Brian.

Bassoctopus

Fair point Brian. "How long would you expect the job to take?" is probably a better way of phrasing the question.

GaryB

Would anyone go to this trouble on any other car or would they follow the service schedule and just drive it until it went pop?

Personally, I'm going to wait for the "Bang..crunch..tinkle...griiiiind" and then worry about it.

Bassoctopus

It's a fair point Gary, and if the engine is losing significant power from 100-200k then probably the right decision.

All these low mileage second hand engines must dry up at some point though, and would you fancy putting an 08/09 engine in your car? I wouldn't.

At the end of the day it's a £4k car though, and not worth worrying too much about.

GaryB

I can't get past thinking that those people who are talking about replacing bearings, also have to consider that every other component in the engine is also 100k miles plus.

If you drop the motor to carry out preventative maintenance like bearings, what else do you replace while it's out?
Valve retainers? But then if you're splitting the head for that, you'd clean all the valves up and look to replace the valve stem seals probably. (Well I would)

Then you have new bearings and a decent top end on 100k mile set of rods, rings and bores...You've minmised the risk of bearing failure but what if your cam chain fails? What state are your cams in?

How far do you go?

The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking of buying my replacement engine now and spending some time tinkering with it while it's in the dining room.... (I have no garage and a very understanding wife)

s2konroids

Re: power levels, me and my mate have witnessed that the power levels didn't really drop even when over 100k. It's not like the 80s when manufacturing and materials were different.

My car, my mates, and a f20c powered dax were tested. First two had obviously been looked after.