Enigo

I had been lurking around these forums for a while, have been looking at getting a new car and had settled on an 4G Acura TL. I have always enjoyed working on my cars and find forums like these invaluable resources for ideas and guides, though this isn't quite the happy introduction I would have preferred to the forums!

I recently purchased a SH-AWD w/ 131k miles and the father of the previous owner (college girl) told me the car had a misfire. He had his mechanic friend replace the plugs and coil, but the misfire persisted, said next step would replace the fuel injector, but stopped there deciding to just sell the car as is. Everything else on the car was clean, interior & exterior excellent condition, so I purchased the car online for a good price and came out to get the car. I knew I was rolling the dice a bit... but the price was good and the car was just what I was looking for. First stop after picking up the car (in PA, I'm from IA) was to take it to a well-reviewed Acura dealership and do an inspection.

The dealership has told me that cylinders #1 & #3 have failed compression tests (90% - 95% loss), the next step would be to take off the head and find out why. Quoted 12 hours labor ($1700) to take the head apart and put back together again, not including parts & labor for repairing whatever is wrong. Haven't dealt with compression loss before as a repair, so I'm not sure what is the potential scope of work. Sounds like as a best case scenario looking at a $2000+ repair bill and if something was wrong with the head I would imagine the costs climbing closer to $4000?

Looking at that price range, I asked about doing an engine swap instead. That came back with a $1200 labor charge but $4700 for the engine, 49k miles but dealership would for warranty 12k miles / 18 months. A re-manufactured engine of course would be more. Sounds like they are somewhat limited on where they can get their parts as a dealership, but said I could another engine and they'd do the work to install it but would not warranty the engine of course. I did find another engine for ~$1500, 58k miles about an hour away.

They found everything else on the vehicle was in pretty good shape, though not knowing how much the previous owner had driven it on the misfire, the catalytic converter might be shot due to the amount of unburnt fuel reaching it. I don't believe that the dealership is trying to pull a fast one on me and the only charged a nominal fee for doing the diagnostic and inspection of the car.

Feeling a bit cornered on this, wondering if there are other options I should consider before dropping $3000 - $4000. I'm open to suggestions! I do need to get back home and don't want to run a high hotel bill while I'm waiting, so I have to decide on something soon...

Enigo

Meant to include this in the previous post:
Are all 4th Gen 3.7 engines compatible with each other? I have a 2010, best option seems to be a 2013 engine

losiglow

iTrader: (1)

Yes, all 4G SH-AWD TL's use the same J37A4 engine. The transmission changes in 2012 (5AT to 6AT) so if for some reason, the transmission is swapped at the same time as an entire engine/transmission assembly, that would be a problem unless the ECU was also swapped. But doing that isn't usually the case.

I had a similar situation with my 2012 FWD. Cylinder #5 developed a nasty oil burning problem which I later discovered to be a broken oil control ring. I tried to deal with it in various ways but after about 4 months, decided to go with an engine replacement since repairing it was about 3/4ths the cost of just putting in a used engine with half the miles.

I consider my situation a total fluke, since I took very good care of the engine and have owned two other vehicles with nearly identical J-series V6's which have never had problems, even with 200K+ miles. However, in this case, I'm betting it's a case of the engine not being taken care of properly, especially if you're experiencing problems on two cylinders. It would be odd to have a fluke on two different cylinders. The J37 is prone to oil consumption but I don't believe there have been too many reports of it having compression loss. Based on that, I think I'd go with the engine swap. As far as which engine, that's up to you. Mileage isn't always a good indicator on condition with any engine, since a well maintained engine with 100K+ miles would be in better shape than a poorly maintained engine with 50K miles. However, the dealer (and any reputable shop) should source their engines from places that inspect the engine for proper operation prior to selling. The place I got mine from even dyno'd the engine prior to sale. Either way, find out what kind of warranty the engine carries. Some are up to 3 years, and others only 6 months. While a huge part of the job is labor, logic would dictate that a place that provides a good warranty is more likely to sell a good engine.

Good luck to ya

JM2010 SH-AWD

I agree with logislow. Just guessing, but this was probably a 3.7 that had oil consumption issue at the high end of the range. The owner was not religious about checking/refilling oil and ran it without sufficient lubrication causing the rings to stick and/or marring the cylinder surface. I'd certainly replace the engine, preferably with one that has some warranty behind it. Sorry your purchase experience is not exactly going to plan. Good luck.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

Grab the $1500 engine !
or that's what I would do.

Enigo

Thanks for info guys! I would suspect she wasn't very on top of the oil levels, per the service indicator the last change was 8700 miles ago. Definitely pushing it, even for synthetic never mind an engine that may have been an oil burner. Oil levels were fine, but it would have been easy to top it off before the sale.

I have moved forward with replacing the engine with the 58k, my first preference would have been to have an engine delivered to the dealership that I was working with. Unfortunately, part of the deal with the good price on the engine was that they had their own shop that specialized in engine/transmission replacements. That said, their labor rates are pretty reasonable, so they aren't gouging on that side. They have pretty good reviews on google and the guy I met with seemed solid. I also asked them to put on a new timing belt kit, hopefully get some peace of mind there.

Downside with that shop was that they are pretty busy, so I'll have to wait 1.5 - 2 weeks for the work to be completed. I just got a round trip ticket and will be heading back home, work is piling up!

All in all I'm hopeful that everything is working out, albeit a lil bit more expensive than expected.