Normal life of the V8 before rebuild

[CNH 0]

By using the term hoe I would suspect that you are in the USA.

Parts and labor are less expensive and we have no VAT.

Also a lot more people in the USA do their own work as opposed to the UK and Europe. Must be the garage and shop space or similar issue.

It is still spendy compared keeping up a regular daily driver.

[hedgerley 438]

Just clocked 41k, thats 11k since I bought the car last October. That includes things like a 900 mile round trip to Goodwood a few weekends back. I work in London Mon-Fri so it only gets used at weekends when I'm back home (Scotland). Apart from a clutch problem early on its life, fixed under warranty, she runs fine. Its the ancilliaries that have bugged me - corroded turbo oil/coolant pipes, split oil radiator, disintigrated cats and so on. The engine itself though is a peach and it hasn't had the liners done (saved about

[rydning 1]

You guys are a bunch of Hoes. 3 weeks and no response. What a helpful forum -

A little late but anyway....

I cant see any reason to not buy a V8,on this forum you get answer most of the time by making a new tread with your quis..

And the only thing that have a big cost is the linersealing,just stay away from the cars that havent done it.

What do you think the running cost is gona be on a Ferrari or Porsche????I know they are much higer than on my Esprit.I have friens with this cars........THEY ARE EXPENSIVE TO OWN.

I also know that Porsche have a hole model line up from 96-2000 where the owners get a new engine because the engine didnt last more than 70000miles.But they "only" have to pay

Edited August 17, 2006 by rydning

[Glenbinegar 0]

34.300 miles, cam belt drive puley bolt backed out. 6 bent valves, replaced lifters, freshened valve job, new gasket set, about $2200.

I have replaced 2 oil pressure switches due to leakage. When the second one started leaking I cut it open, gutted it and welded the hole shut, no leakage since it was reinstalled.

The A/C was leaking from the compressor at the manifold interface, due to poorly machined manifold mating surface. Took two attempts to fix properly.

Dash lights were intermittant, fault turned out to be improperly seated pin in relay connector.

Currently passenger window does not go up unless car ignition is cycled. G;-)

[Günter 28]

34.300 miles, cam belt drive puley bolt backed out. 6 bent valves, replaced lifters, freshened valve job ....

the same as mine '98 GT! It goes not more than 40.000km in original specification . After cam belt drive puley error it need valves and some more things...

not long after that the original gearbox fails (replaced with a "new" part as a special offer by Renault [or maybe Lotus] ) . Luckily i bought it just after these typical Esprit V8 errors. But the storry of faults goes on ...

( be sure , as a mechanic with the "service notes" book i love this "every time something to fix" type of cars ! )

[Nellie 1]

How many miles has your V8 done on the original build?

You can add if it's a Loctite sealed or Hylomar sealed (if known)

I can't edit the Poll question so ignore that bit

Just found this thread, so thought I would add my little piece.

No direct category so I chose the up to 60000. (Apologies if it squews the result slightly needed a upto 50k for 99)

I have a 1999 V8 GT which has currently (Touch wood many more to come) 44000 miles, the history shows no engine rebuild and due to age I assume it is the older Loctite sealed engine.

My primary concern is uprating the gearbox not rebuilding the engine!!

On reliability 40K plus for a supercar egnine is great, stand fast Porsches most super cars get their engines rebuilt anywhere between 10k - 25k miles, my mates TVR even has a service schedule that dictates the heads come off for a rebuild at his next service, and I have yet to meet a TVR owner with the AJP engines who has not rebuilt their engine around the 25-30k mark, even most TVR garages I spoke to when considering a Cerbera said they are great but fragile engines.

Supercar ownership is never going to be cheap as designers invariably look for peformance within reasonable reliability, otherwise we would all own 911's (God forbid the posh VW Beetle!!!! ). This only improves with time as better materials and build techniques are developed and I think perople spend too much time comparing our Esprits to equipment that is a lot newer so benefits from these advances whilst our engines are no loner built/being developed/improved. We shall see how often this converstaion raises its head with the rumoured new Esprit in '09 and its potential 440bhp BMW plant!!

Nellie

[hedgerley 438]

Like many I've found the Esprit benefits from regular use. Despite being a 'weekends only' car, I've put almost 20k miles on in the 2 years I've had it. The car has never let me down on the road and in fact most of my trouble has been with anciliaries such as oil radiators and cats. I suffered the dreaded 5th gear failure (it ran as a 4 speed perfectly fine and got me home OK) and replaced the box with a reconditioned unit about 2k miles ago. Since then the car has been perfect.

The engine hasn't had the sealant upgrade (my paranoia about overheating probably helps here) and the clutch is still original. According to my dealer, who does the servicing, its the quickest and smoothest Esprit they have on their books, including a couple of 03's.

I guess the message is, use it or lose it.

[talon 0]

I'm at 22K miles and put about 150 miles a month on mine. So far, I haven't had any problems. The previous owner had the water pump replaced, but that appears to be the extent of the work done on the engine.

[M3S2k 0]

I have nearly 17k miles on my car. Purchased it in July of this summer with about 13k on it. The car gets semi-regular use during the summer months and during the winter it will be in storage (no snow for this car, hehe). So far all I've done is replaced the A/C pump. Other than that, all i've had is one oil/tranny oil change and had the engine light come on a couple of times only to go off after a few engine starts (don't have a scanner, but presume it is to do with O2 sensors as car still drive normally with no limp mode occuring). Looking back through paperwork car has simply been in for timing belt and one retention. Other than that it was only small things like window actuators and A/C problems. Never anything related to engine.

[joeyoesprit 1]

I have almost 20,000 miles on my 2001. So far no major engine probelms and the clutch still seems to work fine. But I do the service as recommended on the owner's manual and the dealer performs all service (service is done usually one a year or every 6000 miles).

I still belive you need to drive the car... if you let them sit and don't drive them, then you have problems.... but this is just my opinion.

JoeyO

2001 V8

Update... I'm at 24,500 and still running fine and still the original clutch. I did have the typical output transmission seals leak and replaced. I also had engine coil problem (but was fixed under warranty) and changed the alternator. I did have an issue in getting the car to pass emissions after the ECU was reset. But it finally passed, just had to drive the car at the proper speed/rpm to get all the systems to run their checks.

This coming March will get the cam belts changed.

Change the oil/filter every 6000 miles or one year; change the transmission fluid every year and changed all the other fluids (break, power steering, coolant) every two years.

Changed spark plugs every three years.

So far the car is very reliable.

JoeyO

2001 V8

[david hopwood 0]

Yep, best use the car every day everything benefits from this, tappets,clutch splines,bores ect.

But can't stress this enough to all V8 owners manually check the level of coolant in the header tank at least once a week as the sediment will always cause the float to stick in the tank full position then if you do loose coolant the float will not fall triggering the telltale lamp!!!!!!!!

[hasuSan 0]

Question---considering all maintenance & ills has been meticulously performed

and the Esprit V8 has been driven daily (no track racing),

what do you think the life of the V8 before rebuilding? How many miles

do you think before you see some sign of omen?

Anyone here gotten over 50,000 miles or more?

[neal 4]

50k on the dot but by the end it was going through water almost as fast as petrol! It has overheated so many times that I think one or both heads gaskets had gone and the blow through from the cylinders into the coolant system was causing it to dump the entire contents of the coolant system onto the ground through the overflow pipe almost every time I used the car

Edited January 14, 2008 by neal

[david hopwood 0]

55k for my car

[Bibs 11,101]

I've merged this topic with an older one on the same subject which will be of use to you