Any shop worth their salt is gonna tell you that his/their labor wont be included in the warranty if a junkyard engine was sourced.

Not looking for an argument here, your the one recommending the JY engine.. but didnt follow up with the "particulars" to state your case in the event it's bad and who actually arranged the purchase.

Nothing wrong with buying a used engine, but only a fool buys without hearing it run. A junkyard will tell you they test three, and give you the best of them. In reality they get one running, if it's not shooting rods through the block or pan they are gonna sell it to you. And do the same when you come back wanting another. No credible mechanic is going to stand behind someone elses part.

 

go here...several in your state..under 600 bucks with warranty...get one,pull the pan....change the oil pickup tube with a new one

very common for them to crack and then loose oil pressure...and its easy to do while the motor is out..

Just did a 2005 TJ 4.0 45k and motor was locked up..due to pickup broke laying in pan.

http://car-part.com/

That site is where to find anything.

Everyone rides on used parts

 

I wasn't meaning to start an argument. I know minor repair stuff, but I have never done an engine. I was looking at going with a Jasper, they offer a 3/100k. The quot I got so far was $4266.39, that's out the door with throwing a Gibson Stainless header on it too. I was also thinking about just going ahead and doing my LS2 converg or SRT8 6.1, but it's all about cost right now and convenience. This is my only vehicle, with the 2yr old, work and the such I'm kinda in a bind.

 

If you want a warrenty longer than till it leaves the yard or 30 days buy a new one if you want,rebuild one if you can. Most engine rebuild companys are the same quality jasper is no better than the hundreds of others out there.Personally if i get a junk yard motor I use it as a core, but this is only me,but I bet ya alot more do that than they install them. You just don't know what your getting.(but if you go thru enough of them you will get a good one) Plus my time is worth something also. I'm not trying to insult anyone either.Cost effective j/y motor 1 maybe 10 good for how many years or days or hours you just dont know. Rebuilt one's what's the warrenty three years maybe.Well you decide.By the way no shop is going to do a motor swap for free the first or the 100th time, maybe remove the tax off the 3rd or 4th one but they wont let that hourly wage be a big fat zero.

 

buy a **** rotted out one with under for 150k miles for $600.

borrow a dolly and scrap the body for a few hundos....

How can you lose?!

 

Would it be better to sell the vehicle as is, then go buy/finance something newer?

Plenty can break or wear out on these XJs over and beyond the engine. They are all getting old now.

Trust me. I know.

 

I recently put our '97 back in service with an 80,000 mile junkyard engine I paid $450 for. No regrets. The www.car-part.com suggestion was a very good one as that's where I found mine.

If you want to invest more $$, go the Jasper route as suggested also.

You have to make your final decision based on how much money you want or can spend. If you want to get into payments or can afford it, maybe a newer vehicle is the way to go because you don't seem really enthused about repowering your XJ. That's your decision also and one you obviously are considering or you wouldn't have mentioned it.

Any used vehicle is a risk in one way or another. Why I kept the '97 with very high miles and got it back to great running shape was that it's often much better to have the devil you know than one you don't. We got rid of one '97 over the winter because it was rusting out and there were other considerations regarding the overall condition of the XJ that made us feel that keeping it was not in our financial best interest. I replaced it with a '99 Subaru Outback. I couldn't pass up the deal. Still, I got rid of it after only a year because I learned that the particular engine it had was seriously problem plagued and looked at major headaches and high dollar repairs out of my pay grade to fix myself in the forseeable future. That's when I bought the '98 Classic.

Personally, if the rest of the XJ is in decent shape, get another motor.

 

I understand what your saying.

But I would not have said it if I hadn't seen it done successfully many many many times. More times.than I can count.

I was talking to my buddie last night. He runs a shop, does all kinds of work.
Anyway, I asked him how many times he's done this, I had him in mind when I suggested this originally. He laughed, said he had no idea, he said ''jeeze, I practically make a living off em!" Obviously he was joking a bit, but you get the point.

If you really wanna pay 3x more than go ahead. I just don't think its worth it for most.

 

The rest of my XJ is in excellent condition. The only rust on it is right under the hood, where the water runs of from the top, above the radiator. Thanks everyone, you gave me a lot to think about.

 

It seems you are looking for a turn key solution for your engine replacement or repair but I figured I would throw my 2 cent in here.
I talked with the guy at my local NAPA machine shop a while ago and to have him clean, machine and build the engine ( parts included ) it would be around $1,500 or something like that. Thats a stock rebuild but you cant beat that for basically a new engine.The problem is that you would have to pull the engine and transport it as well as re install it and all that.
It sounds pretty cheap to me so I dont know maybe the bottom line would change once I took the engine there but thats what he told me over the phone any ways.

 

NAPA machine shop in my area is long gone.

I guess the final price would depend on his hopefully rebuildable cores.

 

There r a few places here in NY that just rebuiold engines-their motto is - Why junk a car because of the engine. we have or I have seen about 3 places that specialize in rebuilt motors or they will rebuild yours- the latter just takes more time. they charge between 2-3K on the average with a decent warrenty.

 

crystalion where in NY are you located? In my area I dont really see any "engine re builders". I guess everything would depend on location including price.

To the OP
In my opinion 3k for a rebuilt engine is too much.If you can pull the old engine and install the rebuilt one you'll be better off. If you look online you can get prices from 1200 - 2k for a long block,including shipping and all that.
If you absolutely can not do any of the work then yea you're looking at at least 3k for a reputable shop to do the work