Hello

I am new here, just bought my camaro a few days before. I am an Exchange student from Germany and needed a car to go to university so I bought a nice 91 Camaro Z28. I will drive a lot between Tulsa, ok and Lawrence, KS.

When I bought the car it was everything fine, I had driven the car one day in the city and the motor sounds good. But on my way to Lawrence after about 100 mi my motor starts nocking and gets louder till I found a car shop it gets real loud. I was sure it was a red bearing problem and The mechanic there confirmed me this. He says that its very expensive to fix.

What can I do now?? I don't have so much money. I guessed thats possible to change the bearing from the buttom of the car. But he said that they have to put the motor outside or even change him with a replaceat motor.

What is your advice? I really need a car and dont want to lose to much money.

Thank you

 

Chances are if the bearing failed enough to cause a lot of noise, the crankshaft and con rod are damaged. Although everything can be repaired, it's probably cheaper to just buy a stock replacement engine.

You have very few options. Reselling a car with a bad engine isn't worth anything. Spending the money to put a new engine in the car doesn't make it worth any more than what you paid for it. Finding a used engine to install may be slightly cheaper but could be in just as bad condition.

Take it back to the seller and get your money back. If it wasn't sold as/is, you could go to court to try and get your money back. Seller probably knew something was wrong and was trying to sell it. If the failure happened weeks or months after you bought it then that's totally different. It's your word against the sellers that the car was in poor condition when sold and was sold as a vehicle in good running condition.

Poor student or not, no matter how you look at it, it will cost you money to fix it. The engine repair won't be some quick weekend job.

 

I understand. I bought it from craigslist. he was alone and we were two persons. He assumed me it is in very good condition. we didn't make a contract and he didn't mentioned sold as/is. But do I have a real chance?
How hight du you estimate the fixing costs?

 

Go on this site:

www.car-part.com

It is a listing of junk yards where you can look up the pricing of a used replacement engine to get a feel for the costs.

 

Find a guy swapping from a 305 to a 350 in his camaro or firebird, and give him $150 for it if it runs. You wont know for sure. But a lot of guys just dont like slow 305s and give them away. I gave my working 305 away for free. Look for 305's from Camaros and you can find some cheap. Still looking at probably up to $250 for one potentially, plus the cost of installing it if you cant do it yourself.

 

Thank you for your anwers!

yes, I think the owner knew it. The oil was changed some miles ago and he probably but some Oil additional in the oil so that I didn't hear anything. But as I already told, we didn't make a contract. I am sure there is plenty of Additional in the oil but I dont think it is nearly impossible to prove it.

Carparts is a really good site, but I didn't find a 350 in my area only with 200,000 miles and I am afraid.

Does the 305 fits without problems? Is it required to buy another expensive computer for the Motormanagement?

Normaly I can do it on my own, but I live in the student appartments so I have not even a screwdriver. I Carshop asks me about 1000$ only for the change but I think it is very expensive

 

Where else can I find motors?

Thank you