Engine Issues

so recently faced some severe engine issues on my legacy.

i currently have about 50k miles on her.

 

so story is, i was driving home from work... ticking sound emitted from engine... got really loud. pulled over.. and checked all my fluids first. oil dipstick was bone dry. called a buddy over and brought me 4 qts of oil. added 1 qt at a time and checked dipstick lvls after each qt. 4qts satisfied the engine but ticking sound remained. all belts and from what i can see on the outside was fine. had my buddy take me home so i can grab my truck and rent an auto trailer. towed my baby home and to the dealership the next day to see if the powertrain warranty would cover. they took the block apart and found the engine to have been almost 3 quarts overfilled. they also found piston head #4 shot, possible head and cylinder damage as well, and rod bearings are shot.

 

my question is... how does my oil be bone dry one day and be overfilled the next?!?!! and given this situation... what do you think my chances are that warranty will cover?

 

and given worse case scenario... how much do you think it would cost to swap the engine for the gt engine?

Are you sure you were reading the dip stick correctly? Oil should bet at or near the top hole in the dipstick. What has been your maintenance history? If you have all of your maintenance history then the warranty should cover this. Rod bearings should not be shot in a 50k engine. Piston head damage might have been caused by a slipped timing belt, but you usually see valve damage also.

this is starting to bug me.

a few months ago, the exact same thing happend to me, i made a post about it awhile back, but am too lazy to find it.

i had the ticking sound, i added a shitload of oil because my dipstick was dry when it happened as well, and the dealer told me i had 3 qts too much in.

piston #3 was out of round, and the rod bearings were shot as well.

this all happend at about 38000 miles.

at first the dealer replaced the timing belt tensioner, and charged me for it, i flipped out on them and got my money back because it did not fix the problem, and it should have been warrentied anyways. after that they rebuilt the block, it ran good for about 1200 miles, all of which i babied the motor, then the ticking came back. again i went to the dealership, were they explained to me that the phase 2 boxer motors will tick at a cold startup, but it will go away. i told them it did it constantly, but i was better off talking to the wall. finally my motor completley seized and shutdown when i was going about 35mph. i pushed the car 2 miles back to my house. and had it towed to the dealer. they then replaced the short block. i have about 6K on the new block, so far so good. but im beinging to wonder if it will just happen again, the dealer flat out told me that in about 50K or so the ticking will return at cold start, once the skirts wear off the pistons.

 

everyone whom has had this similar problem has 2.5i's i dont think the GT engine is as suseptable to this problem.

 

ive been thinking about the GT swap too....

so question for u. were u running synthetic oil? or just the regular one?

 

right now my situation w/ the dealership is that since the engine was about 2-3 qts overfilled.. they're a bit skeptic that it'll get covered under warranty.... but with the given maintenance history of the car.... theres a small hope of chance that it'll be covered. so far i'm being quoted at worst case scenario of $7k in repairs... which basically involves a new block. but if this is the case... i wonder how much would it be to make it the turbo one hmm......

that's not good. it all depends on your stealer. I did not have any problem with my engine yet *knock on wood*

Wow that sucks, but it is weird how there is not oil, and then there is.

 

Also going to the turbo engine involves a lot more than just the engine. ECU, reprogramming of keys, transmission, differential, etc.

 

If you really want a turbo, then just dump the 2.5i and get a GT instead.

 

Just my 2c's.

 

X

non- synthetic.

do everything you can to get it replaced under warrenty.

call SOA if need be. i was very close to calling them myself. dont let the dealer get away with not covering it.

i had to fight, but i got it replaced. most dealers are strictly by-the-book (unless it gets them more money not to be) so they probably woulent swap the GT.

there is a problem with the motor, we didnt do anything wrong, they should fix it.