New Engine for Bongo

[YellowBongoLady]

Hi there

Unfortunately our much loved yellow bongo's head gasket has blown. We have been advised by the Bongo Specialist Garage to buy a new engine and the repairs and labour all in to fit it, will cost around £1,500.

The van has done approx 85,000 miles and has a few dings on the body and the paint work isn't great. (It was sprayed yellow from it's original racing green colour - not by us!)
However we are attached to our van, use it daily for local commutes, I use it for work once a month (transporting lots of boxes) and we go away in it at least once a year with our little kiddies.

My questions are:

Is it worth repairing?
If so, can anyone recommend the best place to buy an engine for it please?

Any other advice greatly received!

Thank you

[Alkers]

How did it happen? It's more likely head that has gone as opposed to the gasket and you get a new head from here:
http://mazdabongo.com/product-category/ ... tr-diesel/
although by the time you've had someone install it you would not be far off from the £1,500.

By my reckoning it will be worth repairing as you won'g get much for it selling it in its present condition. Budget for a low coolant and temperature alarm in any repair work you get done.

[YellowBongoLady]

Great thanks for the link. Very helpful.

I'm not technical by any stretch, so apologies in advance for the basic terminology but it kept over heating and loosing water. We called our mechanic out who thought it was a leak and repaired the pipes. However this didn't solve the issue - we still kept having to top up the water and it kept overheating. The last couple of days it overheated even when the water was 'full'.

Thanks
Amy

[mikeonb4c]

Hi there

Unfortunately our much loved yellow bongo's head gasket has blown. We have been advised by the Bongo Specialist Garage to buy a new engine and the repairs and labour all in to fit it, will cost around £1,500.

The van has done approx 85,000 miles and has a few dings on the body and the paint work isn't great. (It was sprayed yellow from it's original racing green colour - not by us!)
However we are attached to our van, use it daily for local commutes, I use it for work once a month (transporting lots of boxes) and we go away in it at least once a year with our little kiddies.

My questions are:

Is it worth repairing?
If so, can anyone recommend the best place to buy an engine for it please?

Any other advice greatly received!

Thank you

Hi. Sorry to hear your news. Whereabouts are you based roughly? My head went a couple of years back and I opted just to replace head and gasket, along with new water pump, thermostat, cambelt whilst the work was done as it seemed most cost effective to do these whilst the head was off anyway. A complete new engine sounds a bit drastic unless there is reason to believe the whole engine was damaged by the overheating episode. Provided the rest of the Bongo is sound (remember that old Bongos could be coming up for rust repair / welding bills) then I think the bill is worth wearing either way considering what a Bongo offers over the competition for its low cost. The advantages of NOT changing the engine are (as I see it) that the complete installation does not get disturbed if you just fit a new head to the existing engine, plus 85k is not high mileage on the old engine and the new engine might itself be a bit of an unknown commodity in terms of condition. But either way I'd recommend having the Bongo fully assessed for condition before making a final decision. Definitely fit a low coolant alarm to guard against a future overheating episode resulting from coolant loss.

Good luck and keep us posted.

[Bob]

Warm welcome to the Forum, and sorry to hear you have engine problems.

Are the garage quoting £1500 for the complete repair, or £1500 to fit a replacement engine which you supply?

Obviuosly the final cost will be very different and this will sway the decission to repair or not.

Bogno Spares will ship an engine anywhere, but I would rather have one garage supply and fit in case there is any problem later. All to common for the garage to say you supplied a faulty part and the part supplier to say the garage fitted it incorrectly, or agree its faulty and say, "Just pop it back".

Not really an issue with a part requiring little labour, but for a full engine I'd try and use on person.

If it is just the head (quite common) it is vital to find out, and fix, whatever caused it to fail.

Good luck.

[Bob]

Great thanks for the link. Very helpful.

I'm not technical by any stretch, so apologies in advance for the basic terminology but it kept over heating and loosing water. We called our mechanic out who thought it was a leak and repaired the pipes. However this didn't solve the issue - we still kept having to top up the water and it kept overheating. The last couple of days it overheated even when the water was 'full'.

Thanks
Amy

An all too common scenario if the mechanic isn't 'Bongo Savvy'.

After any coolant loss the system MUST be bled, and done properly. The header tank can be full and give the impression its ok to drive, but there will still be an air lock. This leads to overheating and failure of the head.

If this is the case a complete engine is unlikely to be required, and £1500 sounds about right to supply and fit a new head.

Have a search on here for info on the cooling system, particularly the three videos on the bleeding method. You could ask your mechanic if he/she did this but possibly damage was done before you called him/her.