They have a boat load of low mileage LFX's on ebay and one is fairly close to me. I'm a bit sketched out by no details on the motor and no pics though. They also have a giant list of things you have to do to keep the warranty. I figured a low-mileage pull out motor wouldn't need a lot of work. Anyone have any experience with them, good or bad?
- Determine why the original engine failure occurred and make appropriate repairs.
- Insure this engine is the same application as the one being replaced.
- Clear all computer diagnostic codes from the vehicle prior to installing.
- Exchange the oil pan and pick up tube.
- Inspect and replace gaskets & seals (front seal, rear main seal, valve cover gaskets, oil pan gaskets).
- On crankshaft bolts that are drilled through sealant must be applied to avoid leaks.
- Install new thermostat & gasket (warranty will be void if engine heat tab is melted or removed)
- Replace the timing belt.
- Remove all 'cap-plugs' orifice covers.
- Replace water pump.
- Install replacement sparkplugs & wires.
- Exchange the flywheel and bolts.
- Exchange attached accessory items to insure proper fit (mounts, intake manifold, exhaust manifold, distributor, sensors).
- Disable fuel/ignition before attempting to start engine. This will allow the oil to prime as indicated by the manufacturer.
- Replace engine oil, oil filter, air filter, fuel filters, coolant-antifreeze.
- Drain excess oil and coolant from exhaust system.
- If equipped with an engine oil cooler the radiator or external cooler must be replaced.
- Insure the cooling system is flushed and functioning properly.

 

Good luck lol.

 

Wonder how much they charge to insure all of these things?

 

I have purchased a dozen or so engines from them and had good luck in all cases. You need to know that even though LKQ has purchased these car yards they keep most of the original employees. So if the yard was run by dirt bags prior to LKQ, it still is under its new ownership. I did have one engine where they tried to bait and switch me. It was a 2015 2.5 Fusion engine. Got there to pick up and they claimed it was lost, but for $300 more they would sell me one with lower mileage than the one I bought. We went round and round for several hours and magically the one I purchased showed up.

 

I just bought an engine from them and wasn't at all impressed. I ordered it on a Thursday. They promised it would be picked up from the yard the next day and delivered by the following Tuesday at the latest. They ended up ******* the shipping up 3 different times and it took over 2 weeks to get to me. I spent something like 4 hours on the phone because every time I called nobody had a clue what was going on and they just gave me another phone number to call. They consistently made me feel like nothing was going to happen if I didn't make the phone calls to the shipping companies myself. Then when the motor arrived, it had zero accessories attached (not a huge surprise) and the intake manifold and half the sensors were smashed and needed replaced. For all of the lost/wasted time and all of the broken stuff, they only refunded me $50.

If you can get a good deal on a local motor I wouldn't hesitate to buy from them, but I paid a significant premium for a motor that was supposed to be shipped quickly and I ended up pretty disappointed.

 

So, basically the BEGI of used motors. Got it. Thanks!

 

Yikes, that sounds like a disaster. Thanks for the heads up!!!

What motor was it just out of curiosity?

 

Hahaha! Yeah, totally 100% oem application.

 

lkq is just an umbrella. its basically a bunch of mostly shady dbag scrap yards and 9 times out of 10 people get junk, with those rare exceptions every now and again.

buying from wrecking yards, I've been sold mis-advertised parts so much that I basically have zero faith in any of em

 

LKQ is just a giant owner of tons if independent junk yards. Everyone I have gone to is a pick and pull the parts your self. I regularly shop at mine and gdt good deals. If you wait until a holiday they usually have 40% off sales. Not sure I would ever trust having them pull and ship anything though.

 

LEA Ecotec out of a 2017 Buick. All of the local yards within 2 hours had them listed for $700-900 on car-part.com, but when I started calling around, nobody actually had one in stock. They were all sold already and the listings hadn't been deleted. I paid $1300 shipped from LKQ since I didn't want to delay this project any longer, but still ended up losing about 3 weeks by the time I received the motor and then sourced all of the parts that were missing or broken.

 

 

 

Yeah, I saw ThePass's lfx build and the first motor was shot because of that.

 

The 2.5 in my NC came from an ebay LKQ purchase and picked up locally. It was extremely clean and the price was great. I used car-parts.com to find my LFX dropout from a place about 60 miles away and after getting home and taking a good look at the engine I found the intake manifold was broken (front end impact car). The shop found another similar mileage engine from their "sister yard" that they swapped out and that one looked good.

 

We get a lot of parts from LKQ, good results overall. Verify part numbers and do a visual inspection before the delivery truck leaves, refuse delivery if something isn't right. Sometimes they make mistakes, I've had a couple parts arrive that weren't what they were supposed to be, but not any more so than you would expect from any junkyard. For whole engines, I would never buy without at least pics so you can see the condition of the car it's coming from, the engine looks good and whole, etc. Generally I stay away from front-end collisions for motors because almost always something on the front of the motor will be damaged, but it can be tough to find a Camaro donor that wasn't run head-on into something... you'd think the cars didn't come with steering wheels.

 

...or brakes?

 

I work for GM and as for the LFX engines I can tell you it is hit or miss. Cars end up in the junk yard for two reasons .They are blown up or wrecked. With any LFX engine you're gonna want to do a full reseal of the rear main, oil pan, and timing cover. Replace the timing chains and camshaft actuators. They are common for failure and easy to do with the engine out.

If you want to do an Ecotec swap there are a lot of different versions available. Any junk yard one should get the same treatment in terms of timing chains and actuators. It also helps to replace the pistons rings. They have a special coverage for oil consumption because the oil rings get stuck and it burns excessive oil. The timing chains also have failures due to the chain wearing out the upper chain guide. Check the resistance of the camshaft actuator solenoid valves. They are common for failure. They sit right in the valley of the valve cover at the front of the motor. If you're at the yard looking for an engine, pull them out to check for metal and/or sludge.

With either motor get a catch can. GM PCV systems suck. Almost every 3.6 I work on has oil in the air box to throttle body boot. I also find quite a bit of oil/moisture mixture in Ecotec air boxes as well (the giant box that runs over the valve cover on Terrains, Equinox, and Captivas.) A cheap investment that can give those engines a much healthier life cycle.

LFX engines are bad about bearings and the crankshaft. So be sure to do a full tear down if purchasing one. For what its worth, I have done the special coverage on Ecotec motors and reused the bearings without issues. So long as I don't find any scoring or indication of bearing failures starting to happen or already happening.