PowerTorque Reman engines

[89chevc1500]

I have replaced my stock 350 in my 89sbrc with a reman from oreilly built by PowerTorque engines. I drove the truck for 3 months and the engine started knocking super loud in the bottom end. I took it back to shop and they replaced it with a new engine. Powertorque recieved the engine back and went through it and said there was no mechanical failure but "something" got into the engine and ruined cylinders 1,4, and 7. number 1 piston hit the spark plug and mashed it flat. they are refusing to pay the labor but covered the engine. i changed the oil at 500 miles and never got to the next oil change. anybody have any experience with this company or have any suggestions of how to proceed next? I paid 3500 for the engine, labor and parts the first time and dont want to sink another 900 into the engine just to have a running truck. powertorque saying that something got into the engine and it wasnt their fault seem fabricated to me. the engine was physically not running when i took it to the shop (had to push it onto the trailer). they wouldnt allow my mechanic to take the heads off to see what the problem was, so they can make the story what they want it to be.

 

[DGA1]

Pretty much..."they can make the story out to whatever they want it to be." Sorry to hear about your trouble.

No mechanical failure and piston mashed the spark plug flat do not go together. The con-rod must have given up it's ghost. I'd say they are full of **** and sold you a bad engine, but don't want to own up to it. Why would they cover the cost of the engine if it was not their fault, or let your mechanic crack the engine open?

 

[danman6677]

SUE SUE SUE!!!

 

[bluex]

If you read the warranty carefully it will state that they are only liable up to the purchase price of the engine. I have never seen one that will provide a new engine and pay to have it installed. If you got another engine at no cost then thats probably all they will do.

I went through this with the engine in my 78 and could not get the labor covered. It was from NAPA, dont remember what company actually built the engine though. Good luck is all I can say.....

 

[89chevc1500]

UPDATE

Well after finally talking to engine company myself, they told me something got into the engine and thats what smashed the spark plug. He sent me pictures showing the combustion chambers and top of pistons and it was prety obvious something was bouncing around in there.

bluex, the warranty covers up to 45/hr labor if there was mechanical failure. since nothing broke they wont cover it. he also told me that they didnt pay for the engine O'Reilly had to pick up the bill on that since they give the mechanic a new one before the old one was inspected.

So now it looks like the responsible thing would be for the mechanic to pick up the tab on the labor not me. I didnt install it so I couldnt have dropped anything in there, they are the only ones who could have had the opportunity for that to happen.

the shop wanted me to pay 900 for the labor and parts but my dad talked him down to 640. my dad recommended me to take it to the mechanic because he works on my dad's cars so I had him to talk to him. I would have just got mad and cussed him out then went down there and stole it back from them. my dad and I both agree it isnt my place to pay anything but dont think taking this to court is worth 640 dollars.

 

[MOBS]

If the engine was built and never test-run by the company, it could easily be their fault also. Mastercraft used to do that and one engine(labeled as stock replacement for a 70 chevelle) had a piece of "shot" in cyl-3(shot is used to "bead blast" a block after baking in the furnace). I'm guessing it was probably hanging onto somewhere in the head and fell into cylinder during assembly. It hairline cracked the piston when the piece got between edge of piston and quench area of head. Crack was noticeable when you removed spark plug and shone a light in there....didn't even get broken in, engine ran about 10-15 sec before we noticed a slight ping coming from exhaust, sounded like piston was slapping either a valve or plug.

Anything small enough to fit thru the intake valve could have caused that issue though....I can't see 3 cylinders getting smashed all at once though unless they purposely threw something down the intake. Sounds more like the engine wasn't assembled correctly.....maybe whoever built it used 3 rods that were a tad bit too long and the pistons were slapping the quench area?

 

[89chevc1500]

MOBS-- that sounds like it could be a very good possibility. would it still be possible if I drove the truck for almost 2500 miles and then start makin noise?

I think I will just pay them the reduced price and move on. never takin it back to them...ever!

 

[MOBS]

Not certain, most likely it could be(if the crank journals weren't evenly ground) that those 3 cylinders' rods were too tight in their journals(bearings too thick or rod journal incorrectly machined)....also could've been shot got built up in certain channels of the blocks not allowing enough oil to those 3 rod journals(maybe even bearings weren't correct)....to me a good possibility is the 3 cylinders affected could have eventually smoked their rod bearings on the cap-side and been throwing the pistons into the heads. You should see that in alot less than 2500miles though....so not really sure.

 

[DRAGGIN95]

I bought a replacement vortec 350 for out old 99 burb from O'reilly's and it was a PowerTorque also. I installed the engine and had no problem's for 500 miles and then all of the sudden it lost about 15 lbs of oil pressure and started knocking when started fo a couple of minutes when started. So I pulled the engine out and sent it to them and they said they couldn't find anything wrong with it and that they would be returning it to me unassembled in boxes and that I would have to pay a machine shop to rebuild it again with new bearing's, ring's, etc. So we complained to O'reilly's about it, and finally I got O'reilly's coporate number from a friend that's a store manager and we got ahold of someone high up and they decided to send us another complete crate motor and they ate all the cost. Long story short that was my one and only PowerTorque engine!

 

[MOBS]

I'd only want a powertorque or mastercraft engine if it were a one-time use engine in a stocker dirt track car lol.