There’s over 200 parts in your engine that can fail at any time and cause a breakdown.
Lucky for you it can fail catastrophically in only a few ways. To understand what type of engine failure situation you may be in, it's important to understand how our engines break down and what we can do about them.
Your engine breaks on either the “top end” the cylinder head or the “bottom end” the engine block. The cylinder head (top end) is made up of intake/ exhaust valves and camshafts. The bottom end (engine block) is made up of the crankshaft, bearings, pistons and piston rings. With these technicalities out of the way let's get into the
most common catastrophic engine failures and
what you can do about them.
Top End Failure
Blown Head Gasket
The first and most common top end engine failure is the OVERHEAT or in mechanics terms, a blown head gasket. The symptoms you’ll experience with this car breakdown is constant overheating and/or a rough engine running condition.
Overheating occurs due to exhaust escaping into the cooling/ radiator system through the head gasket and boils your car’s coolant faster than your radiator can cool it down. If your coolant is not boiling but escaping into your exhaust system producing white smoke or loss of coolant overtime, you will also overheat.
What’s actually happening is not a broken head gasket itself. Your cylinder head is aluminum and when it gets too hot it morphs becoming uneven. Causing little spaces to form between the gasket and engine block. Awesome, what can you do about it? A top end engine rebuild.
But before we get into that, let's cover the other most common top end engine failures.
Burnt/ Broken Valves
Broken or burnt intake or exhaust valves would cause a feeling of a hard misfire or a car not running at all. Burnt or broken valves reduce engine compression causing the engine misfires or running rough.
If too many cylinders lose too much compression, your engine will not run at all. You may experience this engine failing condition if you commonly wait months to do your oil change when it’s already overdue. Another mistake is using low quality cheap motor oil found in your average $30 oil change ads.
Paying a little more now or paying a little more later makes no difference to the repair facility. So here we are, a little later. What can you do about it? Top end engine rebuild.
Bottom End Failures
Knocking
Knock knock, who’s there? Busted crankshaft bearings. You can identify a high pitch ticking sound from the top of your engine (usually lifters not having oil), and the low knocking from a worn out bearing by the sound. If it sounds like a “tick-tick-tick”, it won’t sound like a “knock-knock-knock”.
A tick is part of the top end, and knock is part of the bottom end. Along with the knock you will usually find low oil pressure. Your quick-fix here is to conduct an oil change and hope for the best. A low knocking noise will eventually end in a crankshaft or piston failure and you will need to be towed at that point.
Waiting too long to address this may cause an engine rod to “shoot” out of the side of the engine block creating a hole. This will mean extra cost later when you have to pay for an engine “core” because your engine block will not be rebuildable at that point. What can you do about it now before it's too late? Bottom end engine rebuild.
Oil Consumption
If your oil is disappearing in excessive amounts, more than 2 quarts between oil changes. Des Moines Washington, we have a problem. Oil consumption happens in mostly 2 ways, it is either leaking out or burning through the exhaust.
An external oil leak would be noticeable pretty much wherever the car is parked. Leaks of this type are caused by either bad gaskets or on higher mileage engines, blow-by, excessive engine pressure passing through worn piston rings. The opposite of blowby also due to worn piston rings is oil consumption via the combustion chamber burning away in the exhaust.
Signs of the latter can be detected by visual blue-ish smoke from the exhaust or black residue on the rear bumper. What can you, the operator, do about this? Keeping the oil topped off while knowing its burning or leaking away is bad for the environment, but theoretically allows you to extend the inevitable until the end.
Outside of this #NotThinkingAboutOurChildrensFuture attempt of patch work, you’ll need a Bottom End Engine Rebuild.
Seized Engine
Your engine shuts off on the road or fails to start. Symptoms you may experience would be a humming sound coming from your starter or no sound at all. While this symptom has similarities to a bad starter, the difference is the starter cannot turn the engine over because the engine is seized.
This condition occurs when the engine does not have enough lubrication causing the pistons to seize together with the cylinder walls. Loss of oil pressure for any reason indicated by a red oil light on the dash usually leads to this condition.
Loss of oil pressure can be caused by not enough oil, broken oil pump, engine overheat, worn crankshaft bearings etc.
But what can be done to fix it?
A bottom end engine rebuild.
Best Options:
New Engine - Best Warranty
If you’re planning on keeping your vehicle and want another 200k out of it. This will be like buying your vehicle new, just keeping the same old body you love.
New engines not coming directly from the manufacturer are factory remanufactured engines and are usually upgraded to work better than the originals. Select proven brands with nationwide worry free warranties such as Jasper Engines.
Typically new and remanufactured engines come with a comprehensive 3 Year/ 100k mile warranty.
Used Engine - Lowest Cost - Part Only Warranty - Highest Risk
When you’re on a budget, you're on a budget. A used engine is going to usually be the most cost effective solution but carries the most financial risk. Risk of what exactly? Cheap is expensive = little to no warranty.
Most used engines are tested by recycling facilities but its never a guarantee. Bad apples happen to good people all the time and periodically land in the basket by the fruit tree. Most, and I mean 99.99 of used engines come with parts only warranty (0.01% - is LKQ).
Meaning, if there's an issue with the engine post install, you will be on the hook for the labor to replace the defective one even though the car never left the repair facility. This risk could end up costing you as much as a new engine in the end. Weigh this decision carefully.
New Short Block (Bottom End) w/ Top End Rebuild - Middle Ground
Depending on the make of your vehicle, it may be possible to purchase a new short block or bottom end of your engine. This usually comes from a certified engine rebuilder or the manufacturer themselves.
Your original cylinder heads are factory remanufactured by a skilled machine shop and then everything is re-assembly to create the rebuilt engine product. The bottom end/ top end and all new components come with a 2 year / 24,000 mile parts and labor warranty.
Learn more about this option here.
Top End Rebuild-Only
During a top end rebuild your vehicle cylinder head is removed and sent to a professional machine shop.
The machine shop grinds and reseats your valves, cuts and resurfaces your cylinder head to make it smooth and even and then returns it to the repair facility as a professionally rebuilt product.
We reinstall your rebuilt cylinder head with a new cylinder head gasket to complete the top end rebuild. The cylinder head and all new components come with a 2 year/ 24,000 mile warranty.
Schedule and appointment to find out what option is best for you.
