Thats not true. You can get your insurance company to adjust the value accordingly.

I realize you, like most folks, dont have time for this but, have you considered getting a broken engine (or pull the old one if its dead) and "renting" a corner in your indy's shop and doing the rebuild yourself. Sounds like your in pretty tight with him. That way you could take your time, you'd have someone near by for advice when needed and when you were done you'd have an engine you knew inside and out. Just a thought;)

To Winnmutt - not sure what you mean by that's absolutely not true. This was my personal experience - the insurance company was AMICA and they gave me absolutely no credit for the new engine.

Perhaps what you meant was that in your experience an adjustment will be made. Have you had a personal experience like this?

To Winmutt - well, I read the thing too fast. Thought you were replying to my personal experience with AMICA. In any event that's what happened to me.

Honestly, I don't have the time or skill to rebuild it myself. I did ask my indy if it would make sense for them to rebuild mine. He basically told me that he could do anything I wanted, but the parts and labor would cost more than just going to metric. For now, I'll just keep looking for the elusive low-mileage engine. Hopefully, something will turn up before I run out of patience. I have to spend a few weeks out of town anyway, maybe I'll have a working car when I get home..... maybe.

I think you would need to get some type of "agreed value" insurance to make sure the value of a "new" engine was covered. I also have full coverage through AMICA, but I realize it will only help me for minor accidents. Any major accident pay-off will be limited to the "actual value" and you will have to buy the car back and salvage the engine to avoid taking a big loss. If the accident is serious enough to trash the engine, losing money is probably the least of you worries.

What exactly is considered a "low mileage" engine? Our 300SD needing a transplant will be getting an engine and trans we found that have about 160k on them....and if that engine makes it even as far as the old one did, we'll get nearly another 155-160k out of it for a measly $800 (for both motor and trans)....and since we're putting it in....labor costs are $0. We're hoping to have this car completely back on the road for less than $2300ish. Which means we still have a huge leeway on spending....since car+motor+trans have only cost about $1600. We figure it will need about $400-500 in new parts during the installation (hoses, mounts, lines, etc...) but thats normal.

I'm looking for something with around 150K miles (definitely less than 200K), that will do well on a leak test. If I find something like that, I will have it resealed, installed, and see how it works. I really don't want to install anything that's not likely to be good for another 200K miles.

Sort of OT
 

Hey Craig,
I am in NC and looking for a manual transmission. Does the guy you were talking to want to sell the tranny? Feel free to pass me his info.
Thanks!

Actually I was going through a broker in FL, so I didn't directly talk to him (I don't know if he still has the manual tranny). My contact was through these guys:

http://www.searchparts.com/Engines/index.html

ACV is absolutely negotiable if your car is wrecked. I've negotiated a couple of times successfully. You just need to have documents/receipts/comparables to make your case.

I very much doubt that the amount will be adjusted by $5k if you put in a $5k engine, but the car will be worth more than an average example if it is above average.

I agree, most of us could never recover our total costs, either by selling the car or collecting an insurance settlement.

It was a PRV engine, Peugeot, Renault and Volvo developed it jointly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRV_engine

Thanks, I didn't know that.

One of my neighbors drives one around occasionally, I wonder where he finds parts.

DeLorean!!!!! :)
 

One of my neighbors drives one around occasionally, I wonder where he finds parts.[/quote]

You can still get brand new original parts for a DeLorean. DeLorean Motor company in Houston bought out the title to DeLorean and they now issue new OEM parts that were left over from back when DeLorean was shut down. You can even buy a remanufactured one where they strip it down to the bare frame and replace everything with brand new parts. You can even buy them "new" at around 54,000 a pop. You have options when you buy them "new" too, with many different upgrades. Here is the link if anyone wants to check it out :D

http://www.delorean.com/