A Story On How Not To Modify Your New Car

[redae71]

I work for a ford dealer on the southside and i found this bloody hilarious yet i feel others need to hear it because if it happened to me.... well, read on.

 

Last friday a customer had his 2010 model XR5 turbo focus with just over 4000ks towed in, he said it overheated, then stopped. He had a custom 3 inch turbo back exhaust and Simota carbon intake system fitted. i opened the bonnet to find no coolant in the header tank, so i filled it up and pressure tested it. a massive water leaked followed, i removed the under body tray and a small bolt dropped out, i kept it and, upon further inspection, found a jet of coolant coming from the radiator on the left side behind the thermo fan. So 1400 dollars later i fitted a new radiator (its a big job as the condensor, thermo fan, radiator and intercooler have to be removed as one to replace the radiator). After filling with new coolant and bleeding the system (getting up to operating temp) i went on a roadtest and it had NO power, wouldnt idle and blew MASSIVE amounts of smoke intermittently.

 

I babied it back to the workshop and did a TK check and it turned up yellow straight away (combustion gasses in the cooling system). So, with the owners permission, we pulled the head off and found the block and head sealing surfaces had approx 0.18mm of distortion (cold) and these engines are not serviceable and must be replaced if anything like this happens (according to ford and volvo who do not supply rebuild specs)

 

We finally got the whole story from the owner, his house mate ( a mechanic) had fitted the intake system to his car and thought he got all the original airbox bolts out of the engine bay. the bolt i retrieved from the under body tray matched the original airbox bolts. it had hit the thermo fan and then gone into the radiator causing all these problems hence no warranty.

 

We got a price on an engine, 16000 dollars plus labour and fluids and AC gas to fit the engine, on a 35k+ car with 4000ks on the clock. I feel sorry for the owner but the moral of the story is, if you don't feel confident doing it yourself, pay someone who you KNOW is going to do it RIGHT or don't do it at all, save yourself the heartache.

[Chillin]

Ouch! so assuming he is paying 20 grand all up for the repairs. he will be spending close to 50k on a xr5!

 

EDIT: didn't read properly.

Edited August 18, 2010 by Chillin

[the_van_can]

16,000 for a new motor wow. Theres a bit of a conspiracy going on there ford not suppling rebuild specs, cars must be like TV's now designed to break, more specifically the motors.

[19914afc]

I work at a toyota dealership and a landcrusier came in cause the gps radio thing didn't work so they replaced it under warranty, then the new one stuffed up so they started testing things and found a screw had been put through the wiring harness by a company who installed a uhf radio, so then they had to pay over $10000 to fix it all, just ask teddy about it :D

Edited August 18, 2010 by 19914afc

[redae71]

Ouch! How much would the car cost brand new to the factory specs he got it at (before mods)?

35000 plus

[redae71]

16,000 for a new motor wow. Theres a bit of a conspiracy going on there ford not suppling rebuild specs, cars must be like TV's now designed to break, more specifically the motors.

yeh i dunno about any conspiracy but the engine is made by volvo, i did an engine in an ls focus (2.0 4 cyl petrol) recently and was going to rebuild it,ford supplied all the parts but then we found there was NO torque specs in the workshop manual. i remembered in the new model training that most focuses and fiestas are throw away blocks and you absolutely CAN NOT skim the head becuase it alters the compression ratio to much for the pcm to handle and will ping its brains off (not that they don't already because dickheads run them on 91) lol

[SLW42]

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha what a toss, the key is never second guess yourself when doing something as soon as you do, shit goes wrong :yes2: .

[harun]

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha what a toss, the key is never second guess yourself when doing something as soon as you do, shit goes wrong :yes2: .

 

lol the key is.Do not buy a new car that cannot have items rebuilt and stick to old school Corollas.hahha

[Redwarf]

I buy my road cars new. That's just what I do, because I can.

 

I've had my Touareg for six months now, and I wouldn't know what's under the plastics covers under the bonnet. Nor do I care. Nor do I want to know.

 

I don't mod them, play with them or change any spec on them.

 

In return they give me 3-4 years of trouble free motoring, then I get the next one. That's what you do with modern cars.

 

Now, stick to old school Corolla or drive around in quiet leather luxury with a 180kW turbo diesel that will smoke most things on the road.

 

Hard decision that one.

 

It's funny, one or two career changes ago I ran Performace drive days on behalf of Mazda. Most of the cars appeared in the same spec as they left the showroom floor. Some, mainly the MPS', had exhausts, sneezy valves and bling. One of my personal favourites was the guy in NSW who repainted his brand new MPS bright orange, because he's Dutch.

 

Guess which one's gave us the most headaches?

 

Modern car manufacturers don't spend millions of dollars in development just so that some backward hat wearing numpty can do some fully sick mods because they know better.

 

Case in point, Mr XR5 above. XR5's aren't a bad bit of kit. I'd almost own one. But at the end of the day, if you're not happy with the performance and have to mod it to be fully sickerer than before, maybe it shouldn't be the car for you.

Edited August 18, 2010 by Redwarf

[Trev]

I buy my road cars new. That's just what I do, because I can.

 

I've had my Touareg for six months now, and I wouldn't know what's under the plastics covers under the bonnet. Nor do I care. Nor do I want to know.

 

I don't mod them, play with them or change any spec on them.

 

In return they give me 3-4 years of trouble free motoring, then I get the next one. That's what you do with modern cars.

 

Now, stick to old school Corolla or drive around in quiet leather luxury with a 180kW turbo diesel that will smoke most things on the road.

 

Hard decision that one.

 

Oh I was expecting a post about duct tape and airplanes :D

[jono1986]

I buy my road cars new. That's just what I do, because I can.

 

I've had my Touareg for six months now, and I wouldn't know what's under the plastics covers under the bonnet. Nor do I care. Nor do I want to know.

 

I don't mod them, play with them or change any spec on them.

 

In return they give me 3-4 years of trouble free motoring, then I get the next one. That's what you do with modern cars.

 

Now, stick to old school Corolla or drive around in quiet leather luxury with a 180kW turbo diesel that will smoke most things on the road.

 

Hard decision that one.

 

So are you going against the rolla there or?

 

 

I think the moral of the story is, buy a brand new car leave it alone or leave the mods for a certified dealer.

[Redwarf]

Oh I was expecting a post about duct tape and airplanes :D

 

 

We don't use duct tape, we use that silver foil stuff. Hangs on better.

 

However, we only use it when we run out of spit, chicken wire and hope. ;)

[Trev]

We don't use duct tape, we use that silver foil stuff. Hangs on better.

 

However, we only use it when we run out of spit, chicken wire and hope. ;)

 

:D cracker

[Evan G]

just chuck in a 4age :D

[redae71]

Modern car manufacturers don't spend millions of dollars in development just so that some backward hat wearing numpty can do some fully sick mods because they know better.

BAAAHAHAHA :D