AAARRGH!!! Blown 258 Engine Help!

So I finally sell me 1976 Jeep CJ5 and ship it to the new owner - He LOVES it! Then, not an hour after he gets it, he manages to Blow a hole in the side of the block!!!!! No, Im not kidding. I dont understand it. It ran strong, pulled great, held oil pressure, everything! At least it did before it got to them...

Now I need to find him a new block I guess. Problem is, I only got $1125 for the thing, so I dont want to spend too much. I think if I can find a used block, he'll pay to put it in.

Any suggestions guys? Im not paying for a rebuilt block - he didnt buy a Jeep with a "freshly rebuilt engine".....he bought a Jeep with a used engine. Everything else on the engine should be good.

Is there anyone in the Chattenooga, TN area who knows anything about these?

Im dying here.....

 

Here is a 82 258 for $150 in Lebanon Tn

http://nashville.craigslist.org/pts/328102703.html

Edit: sorry didn't read where it needs a rebuild, but I'm sure their are others out there.

 

Sorry....but why do you feel obligated to replace the engine ? 99% of all used car sales by owner are AS IS..no warranty. A savvy buyer would thoroughly check out the engine with a compression check/oil analysis/etc.

The 258 is a low revving/high torque engine that pretty much peaks out at about 3500 rpm. He might have run it quite a bit higher.... that might have prompted the failure.

It is very unfortunate, but unless you verbally implied a warranty and feel compelled to help in the replacement/repair, you are not liable. As a goodwill gesture, you could throw in a couple of hundred to correct the problem but that would be a GIFT and entirely voluntary.

 

I think unless you implied a warranty of some sort I would not do anything. The buyer purchased a used vehicle and any damage done after the sale should be his responsibility, not yours. Especially when it was sold at a fairly cheap price.

High5

 

As is, IS, As Is like previously said, could easily have been over revved,

Usually an engine blowes a holes in the side due to lack of oil or over revving it.

 

Here is one...On the willys tech site..
http://www.willystech.com/parts/messages/25972.shtml

 

Check local Jeep clubs. There is usually someone parting a Jeep out. In the last 3 years I sold 2 258s in running condition. $100 each and had a hard time finding anyone to take either one of them.

 

I'm sorry, but that's too bad. You're talking about a vehicle that's 31 years old! There's no way you should even consider replacing the engine, you don't know what kind of idiot he is or how he treated it. Not your problem, IMO. Caveat emptor.

 

Why? If I sold a jeep and just one hour later the engine blows I would feel obligated to do something for the guy. Be it $100 or $200 to help find the guy a used engine.

Sorry, a couple hundred dollars isn’t that important to me.

 

Heres the thing..

Your heart is in the right place but,
most people's are not that just life.

That said if you want to throw the guy a couple hundred fine but,
he can find his own motor.

And let him know thats it period...

Unfortunaly if you do this once some guy's will keep coming back and complaining over and over till you want to just shoot them.

He blew it up not you period.


Let him know how you feel, do what you want,once, then stop..

 

Yeah, but the guy might have been thrashing through a mud bog with the pedal floored, who knows what he did to it? Some people have no sense at all, and AvianMan shouldn't have to pay for the buyer's mistake.

If the buyer bought it from you in person, and it blew up as he was driving it home, that's one thing. It would be a point of personal honor then. But he said it was shipped, so that tells me it was a long distance purchase, and who knows who else might have driven it in between? I still stick with the "sold as-is" plan.

 

How can you be so positive?

 

If the buyer is someone you trust find a used engine for a couple of hundred and offer to split the difference on the cost...or just go the hundred buck offer.
Engines don't generally throw a rod without some indication beforehand i.e., low oil pressure, knocking, etc. Although it could happen. My bet would be that it was over revved.

 

I say bollucks to him. If it ran when he got it & you did not guaranty anything, that's the way the 31 year old Jeep cookie crumbles. You do not owe him a dime. You can not know what he did to blow up a high torque, low rev workhorse of an engine.

 

I have a running mid 70s ('76 I think) 258 here in middle TN I can lay on him for $100. He has to do the install and come and get it though.
Don't think you should have to pay for it though. If he had bought it from a used car lot and blew the engine they sure wouldn't fix it for free.

 

I am a bit torn. I agree that Caveat Emptor prevails but it did blow so soon after the sale. True he could have over reved it and easily blown it.

The guy did pay a very low price for the Jeep. If he had paid up for it I could see feeing badly about the sale. Maybe offer him $200 or $250???

You would feel better about it and he should be happy getting about 20% of his money back.... good karma????

 

If AvianMan is in Ohio, and the buyer is in Tennessee, he can't really go look at the Jeep to see what happened to it. The buyer might have smashed a hole in the oil pan and lost the oil for all he knows. I'd have to see it first.

Or, there's nothing to prove that it actually IS damaged! He may be driving it around, and just made up a BS story to try and get a "rebate" on his purchase. There's a lot of dishonest, unscrupulous maggots in this world, that try to cheat their fellow man any way they can. Especially in the world of on-line auctions, if it was sold that way.

Sorry to be so cynical, but I've see a lot of shadiness in my 51 years. I wouldn't be surprised if there's more to the story. When I was trying to sell my '72 Chev. pickup I was contacted by several people that set off my inner warning alarms. There's still a lot of honest people out there, but the scum on the gene pool keeps getting thicker. I'm not the trusting soul I used to be. I try, but when I let my guard down I often get burned. I hope that's not the case here, but I still wouldn't want to warranty a 31-year old motor.

 

I totally understand what everyone is saying, and I WISH I could do that, but I can't. It's not my nature, and if it means spending a couple hundred dollars to make it right, then so be it. Im pretty confident that he wasnt going nuts offroad in that hour, and I can't say whether or not he was over-reving, but it does point to that, since I verified that it wasnt leaking oil and that it was holding good pressure before it was loaded on the trailer.


I suppose whether I am obligated really isnt the issue, as I want to help him. Thanks for the leads, I'll follow up.

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