Well, I hope you get good news - I'm sure you miss your friend

 

So today i got word from my mechanic of what the problem is. Its exactly what we suspected. The AOS failed on me again!!! with only couple hundred miles on the clock.
The problem was that the oil refill tubing coming out of the engine had a crack. no one noticed it at the previous repairshop and it caused the same malfunktion again. My mechanic was very much on the point of what had to be done. He said that there was no metal scraps in the oil filters or pan so engine should be good. Some of the cylinders were blocked cause of the amount of oil that flooded the car. He also said that i could still have them tear it down further to be 100% sure of it being fine so i went for that choice. At 85k miles its better to a good picture of it. Spark plugs will need replacement from all the oil and he is going to take care of the exhaust system also. Tomorrow im driving down to his shop to get a better estimate of the costs but for now i stand at 900$ for the complete AOS +
New oil tubing
Sparkplugs
Fresh mobile oil
Exhaust installation
all comes in total to 1600$ including tear down and labor costs.
Im quite confident that they are taking good care of her. It was the biggest relief to find out today that the engine dident bust. A big thanks again to you guys for keeping my hopes up.

Next summer ill be working on getting better tires & speedline rims for the good ol girl.
Cheers

 

That's not a bad price for all that and a peace of mind being able to sleep at night. Also looks like you might've found a good mechanic in the process.

 

$1600 for engine R&R and all of the work and teardown sounds way low.

Absent any symptoms indicating the engine suffered from a hydraulic lock and engine tear down after mild hydraulic lock is overkill.

But there's a complication in that the engine is out of the car.

Time for a story: My 02 Boxster suffered what proved to be a very bad/failed AOS. Unbeknownst to me the tech (following what I was later told were instructions from the factory) did a compression test and during this test the engine suffered from a hydraulic lock that thankfully proved to be inconsequential, if the fact I have put nearly 200K miles on the engine since then, counts for anything.

In your car's case I do not know the severity of the engine's hydraulic lock.

Unless there is some physical sign like oil in the coolant or coolant in the oil, or unless there is noise or resistance or anything out of the ordinary while turning the engine over hand -- with the plugs removed of course -- or possibly even using a starter, I think I would have the work that is clearly needed done and the engine installed in the car.

In short no further tear down.

Or if you prefer, if the engine appears to be ok and spins by hand ok, have a compression test done. Now generally I advise against a compression test for an engine that is not manifesting any untoward behavior, but a complication in your car's case is the engine is out and there's no way to run the engine unless the shop has an engine test stand.

If the engine were in the car and could be run provided it didn't exhibit any signs it should not be run, the DME would perform the equal (better in some ways) of a compression test by measuring the acceleration imparted to the flywheel by each cylinder's power stroke.

If a cylinder were weak, due to anything arising from the hydraulic lock but also say a worn cylinder or even a leaking/burned valve, the CEL would be turned on and one or more error codes (probably misfires) logged.

So with the engine out of the car a compression test or even a leak down test could be done.

But there's some risk.

With all that oil in the cylinders a weak cylinder (due to say just a bit excessive wear) could test ok the oil helping its compression/leak down test results.

But what a compression test or leak down test would do is identify a very weak cylinder, which then would warrant further engine tear down to address the problem.

Last but not least, I'm not at the car, and I'm not the professional auto mechanic. So you have to trust in what your mechanic has recommended as the proper course of action.

If that involves a tear down to ascertain if the engine suffered any from the hydraulic lock then that's that.

Sincerely,

Macster.