£4K cooling system rebuild?!

[TameRacingDriver]

Strongly considering going for a JCW R53 soon, and have read of this rather alarming bill on classic and sports car:-

https://www.classicandsportscar.com/features/buyer...

Relatively simple, and bombproof provided the cooling system is kept well maintained, the Tritec engine should be the least of your worries. In highest-stressed Cooper S form, it’ll be due a £3500-4000 rebuild by around 130,000 miles – though dropping in a secondhand unit should be much cheaper.

Can anyone comment on this, as that would write the car off with that expense surely?

Edited by TameRacingDriver on Sunday 23 February 13:26

[WonkeyDonkey]

Water pump, piping, radiator, thermostat and a expansion tank shouldn't cost that much surely?

It was cheaper than that on my Elise and you have to route the cooling from the back to front of the car (& back again).

[gareth_r]

Engine
Relatively simple, and bombproof provided the cooling system is kept well maintained, the Tritec engine should be the least of your worries. In highest-stressed Cooper S form, it’ll be due a £3500-4000 rebuild by around 130,000 miles – though dropping in a secondhand unit should be much cheaper.


I read that as meaning that the Cooper S engine is crap, and that, regardless of the state of the cooling system, it will require a rebuild, costing £4K, at 130,000 miles.

Edited by gareth_r on Sunday 23 February 13:48

[TameRacingDriver]

gareth_r said:

Engine
Relatively simple, and bombproof provided the cooling system is kept well maintained, the Tritec engine should be the least of your worries. In highest-stressed Cooper S form, it’ll be due a £3500-4000 rebuild by around 130,000 miles – though dropping in a secondhand unit should be much cheaper.


I read that as meaning that the Cooper S engine is crap, and that, regardless of the state of the cooling system, it will require a rebuild, costing £4K, at 130,000 miles.]

Yes re-reading it, it does seem to suggest that, which means I will either need a low mileage one or consider another car!

[rabbitstew]

I replaced the radiator, header tank, water pump & coolant pipes on my Cooper S last year whilst I had the car stripped down and they came to about £200ish, plus new coolant. Easy enough to do when you have the car in bits. The header tanks are prone to splitting & the radiators tend to rot through at the bottom. But when you factor in these cars are 15 years old or so and most now have 100,000 miles on them then its just normal maintenance really.

The £3,500 to £4,000 must be referring to paying someone to do a full rebuild of an engine. In reality, you can pick up decent 2nd hand engines for a fraction of that.

[rare6499]

Absolute nonsense. I’ve done this a few times on a number of R53’s, even paying someone else it doesn’t get anywhere near that sort of money. They have a very straightforwards cooling system and all of the components can be bought relatively cheaply. Even doing a supercharger oil change is cheap. I would love to know how they came up with these nonsensical numbers!!

[TameRacingDriver]

It did seem ridiculous to me I have to admit, that's the same sort of money as a rebuild on a Porsche engine nearly.