Date: Tue, 2 May 1995 15:55:27 -0700 (PDT)
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: David Schwarze <schwarze@superc.nosc.mil>
Subject: Re: Why there are so many cars with "rebuilt" engines for sale?
Christopher Bridge writes:
>
> Someone noted that all (most) VW's which are for sale have recently rebuilt
> engines in them. I have been pondering this over the last few weeks.
> A few thoughts:
> 1. the most obvious: They aren't all rebuilt.
> 2. They may be rebuilt, but very few parts replaced.
> 3. maybe rebuilt means the engine has had a valve job recently.
My guess:
4. They have been rebuilt at some point in their lives.
I'm sure that's true of most air-cooled VW's. I've seen people advertise
their engines rebuilt, and when I ask how recently, they say, "oh, about
60,000 miles ago" or similar.
> Seriously, how would you tell if the engine had been rebuilt? If it was
> very clean, I might believe them, but in the space of two days, I cleaned my
> engine till you could eat off it. So who knows. When I was shopping for my
> current bus, I found a bus with a "freshly rebuilt engine" in it, the owner
> told me that it had less than 10k on it. I told him that it was a bald-faced
> lie, and left. That engine was absolutly filthy, and hardly looked or
> sounded rebuilt.
Sounds like it *was* a bald-faced lie. I usually use the cleanliness to
judge if the engine is rebuilt. It is easy to clean an engine, true, but
I think rebuilts are cleaned SO WELL that you can tell the difference
between that and someone who gave their engine the once-over with a can
of GUNK. On an air-cooled VW, I would look for oil leaks. None would
be a strong reason to believe someone if they say their engine is rebuilt.
Reciepts help too.
-David
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David Schwarze '73 VW Safare Custom Camper (Da Boat)
SAIC Comsystems, San Diego Calif. '73 Capri GT 2800 (Da Beast)
e-mail: schwarze@nosc.mil '87 Mustang Lx 5.0 (Da Sleeper)
http://papaya.nosc.mil/~schwarze '93 Weber WG-50 (Da Piano)
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