Well, I hope you get a better result than I did. My son enlisted in the Navy a few years ago and even though he showed some potential got into some trouble and was let go after two years. As a retired naval officer I hoped he would have done better. BTW, The GLE in question is one he bought himself while stationed at NAS, Jacksonville, FL.

But he is coming around. He works and will continue to work when school starts again in September. Again, my role is to assist him in achieving is own goals.

 

Would love to compare new vs old engine numbers..... I smell a scam right off the bat. There will be a used engine in the car for sure, I seen this happen too many times. People pay $$$ to get their engine repaired just to find out nothing has been done. Guy I went to high school with had a Probe GT a while back, his timing belt broke and the shop charged him 3K bux for a new engine. I did some poking around and found that they just put a new timing belt on the car and shipped it.... the engine seized up few months later as the water pump leaked coolant out and engine overheated. Shop didn't even change the pump while "they did the engine".

Thanks for stimulating the economy I guess.

 

Please listen to BlackBird, he has inside track. He knows how a typical shop operates from the inside out.

- Vikas

 

Yes, I will check that out. I certainly intend to get the two-year warranty in writing before I pay them. Regarding the engine numbers, where is that listed? If they switched engines on me I don’t have the old one recorded anywhere to determine if it was swapped.

On the other hand, many of you have been insisting that I should have gone with a swap instead of a rebuild. So if they pulled a swap on me with a guarantee , isn’t that what you preferred anyway?

 

Yes, that's what we suggested. However getting a replacement instead of a rebuild (what you paid for) is a completely different matter. That deals with trust and cost, mostly.

 

You should certainly be able to tell if it's a rebuild, look inside the valve cover, under the oil filler cap and check the head out and valve springs, clean or covered with crust.

Many, many years ago I worked for a fellow that had a rebuilt A/T in his garage that came out of a wreck. A woman needed a trans and didn't want a used unit, only rebuilt, so I spent about 2 hours scrubbing the used unit which we installed. The owner gave her the 12mo/12K rebuilt warranty and everybody was happy and she never knew the difference.

 

A transmission shop pulled that crap with me. They jacked up my original transmission trying to rebuild it (couldn't get it to shift) so they said they'd get a used one and rebuild that one. You'd think a proper rebuild wouldn't flare on the 3-2 downshift (first sign a 4th or 5th gen Accord transmission is wearing out) but it did. 8 months later the shop got a new manager and rebuilder so I took it back for the 6th time since the original rebuild (which leaked, which was why they tore into it again and ended up trashing it) and that rebuilder said the transmission they put in my car had never been taken apart. They just threw a used on in without rebuilding it. The rebuild worked great for a year or so, then something let loose inside and was clogging up the pump. Ended up putting in a used transmission and had no more problems. Lesson learned.

 

Just as an update, we checked in with the rebuilder yesterday. They’re waiting for a few more parts to come in and the car should be ready by the middle of next week. At that time they will also look into the A/C resistor or fan problem that I reported in another thread.

On the possibility of a swap scam, we don’t seem to have a record of the original engine’s serial number so we’ll just have to look another way to ascertain if we’re getting back the original engine. Any suggestions?

 

Without having noted the original ESN, you can't, really. You could call up Nissan and see if you can get someone to tell you what the 'new' ESN matches up to VIN-wise, but that means nothing if they just rebuilt a different block to put in there rather than your own (not uncommon at all).

It should be fairly obvious that it's gotten all new gaskets, new RTV on the covers and oil pans, etc. But again, there's really no way to know it's been rebuilt without pulling the upper oil pan or the head off to see what's going on in there.

 

Do the VQ's have VIN plates/stamps on them?

edit: nvm.

 

Go to the shop and check on the car. See if the engine is out and apart.

 

FAI - forget about it. You were advised, you were warned, you chose, you decided. Pay the money and move on. I'm sure there's a lesson in here somewhere, especially for the lurker who might be considering a thing such as this.

 

As an update, we got the car back yesterday. Everything seems to be working fine. There are some new parts, like drive belts that we can see. I have the 2-year warranty in writing, of course. And the A/C is working again.

I want to thank the forum members who participated again for your suggestions. Although I may not have followed all your ideas I did learn quite a bit on the subject.