Like I said, it is little known. There is some information here:
http://mbca.cartama.net/showthread.php?t=25313
I would contact John Blazer whose email address is in the article in the initial post and see if he can shed any light on how to get MBNA to kick in some of the cost. While the car is certainly older and with 160K miles on it, if they have a complete service history and were the original owners I'd bet they could get a new engine - maybe for nothing.