Sump Damage

[astronought]

While driving at about 75 mph around the M25 to Gatwick Airport at 5.10 this morning I hit an 'unidentified object' lying in the middle of the carriageway. Several loud bangs later and the oil warning light in the DIS immediately started flashing so I pulled over to the hard shoulder at which point the rest of the engine oil was deposited.

From the less-than-one-second glimpse I had of the object it was probably wooden and about 2 feet wide and 1 foot high. Needless to say the privatised Motorway Maintenance guys didn't exactly look hard for it when I reported the problem to the Motorway Control Centre.

Anyway, the car's now at the accident repair centre waiting for the insurer's engineer (insured with Tesco) to have a look at it tomorrow. The guy at the centre says it's a minimum of a replacement sump and quite possibly a replacement engine.

Fortunately it's fully comp so it will only cost me the £150 excess, but out of interest do you guys know how much a new sump/engine replacement would be? What are the implications of this work and what sort of questions should I be asking about the repair?

Any help appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

[HTC]

It will probably just be a new sump. They break easy. A new sump is about £100 + vat and fitting.

If it has to be a new engine (due to oil starvation/debris in sump) it will be a "short engine" which is basically a block with the cramk and pistons. I'm guessing that that would be in the region of £800 on an exchange basis. Depends on the quality of the garage as to what the fitting charge will be for that. A good few hours I would have thought.

 

[jcs356]

Sorry to hear your bad luck. Something similar happened to me a couple of weeks ago - but I got away lightly.

I was heading up the A331 Northbound under J4 M3 about 6:30am and just as you leave the roundabout to go under the M3, I came across a queue of stationary traffic (v unusual at that time) in the fast lane, and an empty slow lane except for a large piece of HGV fairing slap bang in the middle of the road, and the HGV that had just lost it about 100yds further up the road blocking the lane.

I had 2 choices - hit the stationary cars, or drive over the fairing with anchors on. I chose the latter. Fortunately, I think it must have been fibreglass or plastic as I went over it, and threw it out the back of the car. For my troubles I got a nice red stripe on the lower half of the bumper, but after a thorough check, fortunately nothing else. What really p****d me off was that I'd had the front bumper resprayed less than 2 months before /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cry.gif As I say, I was lucky - that could have been metal, wood or whatever and ended up in the same situation as you.

The sump on the S3 is aluminium and so is quite easy to damage (assuming you have an S3, that is!). My S3 had a new sump when I got it back post theft as the gits had grazed it badly (probably speed bump) so I changed it to be on the safe side. New sump was £76.96 inc vat retail, then you need various sealants or gaskets to stick it on, and obviously the oil. I reckon you could swap the whole lot in under an hour as it can all be done on the car and will cost around £200 even at dealer prices.

 

[astronought]

Update...

The engine is done for - my "big end's gone"!

On the upside, Tesco's have authorised a repair (including a new cylinder head and turbo) - cost of the parts alone - £3760.

As you can imagine, I'm a very happy bunny!

 

[HTC]

Thats good news. Glad your car will get sorted. Could have easily gone the other way.

 

[astronought]

Can anyone give me advice on driving do's and dont's with the new engine?

I expect to pick the car up this week and am then driving to Devon (from Hampshire) for the weekend. Should I keep it under a certain revs for so many miles?

I will ask the stealers for their advice, but would appreciate a second opinion from you guys and gals.

 

[RichA3Turbo]

[ QUOTE ]
astronought said:
Can anyone give me advice on driving do's and dont's with the new engine?

I expect to pick the car up this week and am then driving to Devon (from Hampshire) for the weekend. Should I keep it under a certain revs for so many miles?

I will ask the stealers for their advice, but would appreciate a second opinion from you guys and gals.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just go easy... dont use the power until the oil and water are upto temp, go easy on the revs...other than that, drive as normal!

Rich