The mstery of the never ending engine repairs

In May, 2001, my Grandmother-in-law gave us her '93 Cutlass Supreme SL when she bought a new car. It's a 3.1L V6, by the way. After a year of ownership, it started acting up and, eventually, the engine seized, resulting in a rather hefty bill ($2600!!) to have a re-manufactured engine put into it.

Everything was going smoothly until this past summer. Our brakes went out. After having them serviced, the mechanic informed us that "something" had contaminated our master cylinder, but he wasn't sure what.

About a month ago, we noticed the car was burning oil. Since there were no other obvious problems, my husband assumed it was a seal. Well, a little over a week ago, it started backfiring, so we decided to take it in.

The engine is under a 3 year warranty, however the mechanic we have this time says he sees nothing indicating that the manufacturer is at fault. In his opinion, the engine has been "boiled". Overheated so severely that our 6 cylinder was running on only 5 and most of the pistons were trashed. There was oil thrown everywhere and burnt to everything. So we now know what had contaminated our braking system.

Our problem is we're having a hard time figuring out how a year and a half old engine could overheat so badly under normal use. And without us knowing. Apparently, the temperature gauge is functioning properly, and we never noticed a spike. You'd think with an overheat this bad, we would've smelled something...anything! But nothing. The mechanic said we should've heard it. Neither I nor my husband are morons, and he's quite good with cars. He's completely perplexed by this. And my father has been a constant source of frustration because he seems to believe that WE did something to the car. Like my husband's been hot-rodding it or something. Yeah, he's been drag-racing a 4 door sedan with a child seat in the back *rolling eyes*. We've done nothing but baby that stupid car ever since it's "operation" last year. We never drove over 55mph during the 6 month "break-in" period and we've kept the oil changed. We've been pondering this for a while now and it's driving us crazy!
So I was just wondering if anyone knows anything about our current problem or what may have caused it. Also, have any of you ever experienced something like this?

Oh, one more thing; the last time the engine seized, the mechanic said it had spun a bearing. And this time, our current mechanic is telling us it almost happened again. So who's to say it won't happen again? Any info anyone could give me would be greatly appreciated!

?????? perplexing question ! I dont have a cure but i offer this suggestion, put a after market manual temp guage on it and warch closely, it may direct you to when the problem occurs so you mechanic can check it right then.

Thanks so much for the suggestion, I'll pass it along. And I'll let everybody know if we ever figure this out.

Um...I'd suggest that you maybe take it to a different mechanic for a second opinion. Some of the stuff that you posted is just bogus. Contaminated master cylinder? Something about that doesn't sound right. There's no way that oil could've gotten into the master cylinder....unless there was no cap on it or a leak in it somewhere. :eek7:

It almost sounds like you blew a head gasket this time, which would be a manufacturing defect with the engine and covered under the 3 year warranty that this engine supposedly has. That's the only thing that comes to my mind at the moment.

I don't really have any answers at this time..but I wouldn't let them tell you that it isn't a manufacturing defect..because whatever went wrong with it is definately a defect.

In my opinion if a motor that is still under warrenty boils over there is a reason for it other than somthing the driver/owner did. If the repairs are to be covered by the warrenty you need to first make sure the boilover wasn't caused by something other than the motor leaking coolant or the thermostat sticking. Did the coolant leak out of somewhere like a loose hose connection, a hole in a hose or heater core, or a hole in the rad? Are the passages in the rad blocked? Did the water pump or its gasket fail? Did the cooling fans not kick in? These are things that can destroy a brand new motor. Some times there will be no warning either. If the car is running fine and one morning the coolant level gets to a point that is below the temperatur senser the senser will never pick up the hot coolant and the motor will over heat without you even knowing it. Technicly in my opinion this is a manufacturs defect because of poor senser location but you will never convince a mechanic of this. He will say you should have checked the coolant level more often.

If the guy that installed the motor messed up the install and buggered the motor you can be sure he will not tell you about it and you will pay for it. Maybe he disconnected the temp senser when he installed the new motor so you would have to by a new one from him again

Remember, the car didn't over heat because you forgot to check the coolant (if that is what happened) it over heated because it lost the coolant.

Ask Your mechanic why the motor overheated. If he says he dosn't know tell him he needs to find out before they put a new motor in again. If he can't find anything wrong with the car independent of the motor then he better cover it under warrenty.

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I am a sinic forced into repairing my own car because I don't trust mechanics.

Thanks for both of the good suggestions and comments.

In reply to the first one; the biggest problem we have with finding another mechanic is that this guy is the only mechanic we could find who was willing to do the tear-down on the engine. Everyone else just didn't wanna bother with it. We obviously didn't wanna take it back to the shop that installed the engine in the first place. Actually, when my husband contacted them, they gave him the run-around saying the warranty was void because we never had a new water pump installed. A load of crap since the warranty mentions nothing about that being a condition. And besides, we've wondered about whether or not that place was the reason our brakes were contaminated. Really wouldn't surprise me. Especially after the way they've acted this time around.

I am going to print both of your responses up and shove them in my dad's face. Maybe he and my husband will be able to force some answers out of our current mechanic.

Perhaps fixing your own vehicle is the only way to go. I was just screaming at my husband about my father's new-found trust in this mechanic. If I recall correctly, he trusted the first set of yahoo's who installed the stupid engine in the first place. I'm becoming rather jaded myself.

But I'll be sure to get this stuff investigated before we shell out $1500 bucks to this guy. Thanks again!

ask him if he bled the coolant.

The overheating problem was actually figured out! Can you believe it? Apparently, the problem was something that the first mechanics had screwed up. On our head, there are longer screws that go in the back and shorter screws that go in the front. They put some of the shorter ones in the back and improperly torqued them....they ended up cracking the head. So that's where the overheating/boiling over problems were coming from.

Although, it's not something I'm sure I'm buying anymore. It hasn't even been a year and our car is leaking oil again. I don't think this will ever end. The work that was performed on it last year is guaranteed....but I'm sure he'll find "something else" wrong with it.