HI,
I bought an 87 firebird from a guy who got tired of repoing it. one of the ppl who he repoed (sp?) it from switched the motor out. Since it was repoed, he had no paper work on the new motor , etc. he said it has like 73K miles (if i recall correctly) but what i would like to know is if there is a way to tell with more certainty how many miles this motor has? I had a few mechanically inclined friend under my hood, just to check it out, and they all bought in to the new motor thing. lol but couldnt tell me how many miles it really had.

Any help appreciated.
SE.

 

unfortunately theres really no actual way to tell how many miles a motor has got on it just by looking at it. do you have any idea how long ago the most recent motor was swapped in? even a general idea would probably help you to estimate how many miles are on the engine.

good luck

 

Without tearing the engine down, you can tell its general condition with a compression test, cylinder leak-down test, vacuum, and oil pressure. Smoke on start-up is an indication of valve seal condition. After putting a few miles on it, you can also judge its condition by oil consumption/leakage.

If all of those things are okay, the number of miles it has on it is inmaterial.