Source Of Previa Replacement Engine

[JackD]

My '96 Previa blew its head gasket. The garage has taken the head off and tells me that the block itself has corroded rather than the head, and recommends a s/h replacement engine rather than try to patch the problem.

Has anyone got any recommendations as to a source of good s/h old-style Previa 2.4 petrol engines - or just as useful, any places to avoid? I'm in the Reading/Newbury area, but I see that many of the breakers will deliver, so locality shouldn't be a problem. An idea of the current going price would be useful as well.

Thanks

John D

[propnut]

It all depends where the corrosion lies in your engine. Normally these corrode badly on the rear most bottom water way but as long as there is enough metall left between that hole and the number 4 cylinder to make a good gasket seal it should be ok.

Otherwise you will need to scour around the scrap yard for an engine with considerably less mileage than yours. You can normally buy "low mileage" engines from eBay that come with a warranty, HOWEVER either form a scrap yard or from eBay you have no guarantees that the motor is ok unless you take off the head.

The reason these things corrode is because over the lifetime of the vehicle one owner after another puts plain tap water into the rad instead of distilled water with antifreeze in the right mix and the string of owners don't bother changing the coolant at the suggested intervals.

Factors like these unfairly give these cars a bad reputation for blowing head gaskets.

[sjray]

I had a similar problem on my Previa (M-reg 150K) when the gasket blew and wrecked the engine last year. I searched for a few weeks but couldn't find an engine that was lower mileage and could be confident didn't have any problems. A Toyota dealer could sell me one for £6K-7k!

I ended up buying another Previa (P-reg 53K) that had a decent service history rather than payout for an old engine I didn't know was going to be any good.