Long story short, one of our daily drivers was run without any oil. Dealer sent over pictures, but I am not knowledgeable enough to know what they show. Please let me know what damages you see. Dealer says cylinder wall pictured shows scoring, and the timing of the engine was completely thrown off. Dealer is giving us two options: 1. Access the variable timing "pins". If it's broken, replace and set it straight, and go from there hoping that nothing else is broken and the scoring cylinder wall doesnt pose other problems. 2. Replace engine completely.

What would be the best course of action? Please advise. Thank for any help.

bro are you saying a dealer ran your car without oil, and is trying to explain damage to you and fix it, I would want a factory new engine (or extremely low mileage) and all component and a decent chunk warraty.

Who ran the car without oil?

Delete thread, lawyer up, and get a new engine or car depending on how good of a lawyer you get.

This has the wife written all over it.

the fault was our own. No need for a lawyer. I would appreciate help with what I asked. Thank you guys

The boroscope pics don't look too bad but they aren't very good quality. They should really take the head off and investigate.

As far as timing, is it in an interference engine? If so jumping timing equals bent valves but I am assuming it's not since they don't seem mega concerned over it.

billnchristy wrote

The boroscope pics don't look too bad but they aren't very good quality. They should really take the head off and investigate.

As far as timing, is it in an interference engine? If so jumping timing equals bent valves but I am assuming it's not since they don't seem mega concerned over it.

if a car ran without oil. a complete teardown must be done...period. you assess damage and weight cost to repair vs replacement

Hahaha, I'm sorry, but I have to ask...

How?

And this is why I hate that there's no Dip Stick! How would you know, and didn't a low oil light come on? Because first thing you do if that pops is stop sharply and kill engine! Lol. Is why the light is RED.

So, here's a question too. Why wasn't oil put in and run it to see what happens? Was the codes? CEL's?

I would have put oil I'm asap and ran it a while, checked for leaks or weird noises, and absent them, especially because it would be on my some, worry about it when I needed to. I'm sure the $ isn't going to be that cheap, regardless of what they want to do.

Good luck though!

O Haiii wrote

Long story short, one of our daily drivers was run without any oil. Dealer sent over pictures, but I am not knowledgeable enough to know what they show. Please let me know what damages you see. Dealer says cylinder wall pictured shows scoring, and the timing of the engine was completely thrown off. Dealer is giving us two options: 1. Access the variable timing "pins". If it's broken, replace and set it straight, and go from there hoping that nothing else is broken and the scoring cylinder wall doesnt pose other problems. 2. Replace engine completely.

What would be the best course of action? Please advise. Thank for any help.

You need to explain HOW the engine was run without oil. Did you attempt to do a oil change by yourself and not add enough? Did you leave the drain plug out? What and HOW did the engine lose all its engine oil ?

You're looking for help, but not describing how this happened in the first place. If it was your ignorance, then you're done. It's your fault. If it was something defective from the Factory, then they are at fault. If something broke in the timing chain causing oil loss....its the dealership. Need to know the details.

He is not trying to figure out fault though, he is asking if the tech orientated folks here see damage and where.

I am curious too (still money on the wife) but he doesn't have to let us know to answer his question.

Shit reading this thread has made me want to ask to, how exactly did this happen just so I know if it can actually happen to me lmao.

I wouldn't want to run an engine that has run out of oil. I'd go with a new one.

More important than how was it run without oil, is how long was it run without oil. The cylinder images are crap can't really see anything. The right thing to do would be a complete teardown to determine the condition of the cylinders, bearings, crank etc. At the very least I expect the bearings and piston rings need to be replaced even if you're gonna ignore the bore scoring.

At this point the cheap thing to do would be to replace the engine with a good used unit.

I ran my previous car without oil for an 8 minute drive... Oil filter sandwich plate failed, causing no oil to circulate even though there was some in the pan. That was a $1200 Miata, and I tore it down completely and rebuilt it. If that happened to my $60,000+ vehicle, you can bet your ass I'd have it rebuilt.

Scoring doesn't seem horrible, but scopes are terrible quality. Realistically all you SHOULD need is bearings, piston rings, gaskets/seals and new fluids. That is bound to be cheaper than an entire engine, no?

O Haiii wrote

Long story short...
What would be the best course of action? Please advise. Thank for any help.

Yes it would be interesting to know how, but the real question is how long it ran without oil, what was the max speed and for how long, and how was it then noticed? Big red light on the dash? Smoke from the engine? Car went into limp mode?

Then my next question is did they explain how the timing went off? That is NOT insignificant.

Bottom line is that if you don't get a new engine, you will never know which mile is your last.

///Rich

Tough call. Scoring doesn't look too bad but you can't be certain about this. More information is needed.

Options:

1. fill er up with oil and see how she runs. If no codes and tolerable oil consumption, run it that way for a while. You are in California so oil consumption could fail smog, leading to option 2.

2. source a used engine and install it.

I have a question. When assessing timing marks shouldn't the number one cylinder intake cam be at tdc ? Is the #1 intake cam in the top picture not at tdc ?

Conissah wrote

Scoring doesn't seem horrible, but scopes are terrible quality. Realistically all you SHOULD need is bearings, piston rings, gaskets/seals and new fluids. That is bound to be cheaper than an entire engine, no?

If you're doing it yourself it would be cheaper than a new engine. If you're taking it to a shop then just installing a used engine + labour would be cheaper I think. Again, I don't know what car/engine it is.

To answer some of your questions, the car will crank but not start when oil is added. None of the valves are damaged. Bearing clearance test passes. Havent done compression test yet. We don't know how long the car was run without oil but I would guess 30 - 50 miles at varying speeds. This is a hyundai 2.0 liter 4 cylinder na engine. It was our fault, not any fault of the car. The car is currently at the dealer and the conundrum is dealer will charge a thousand bucks just to do a teardown. The service advisor said the camshafts are pointing in wrong directions as a result of the engine jumping timing. He blamed a variable valve timing "pin" as a culprit for now. I dont want to spend a thousand bux to do a teardown and have them start pointing out all these things that need to be done which will drive up the repair bill to god knows what. A brand new engine replacement with labor will cost 6k. Trying to weigh my options.

It's difficult to see scoring on those pics. To me it looks like the camera is turned 90 degrees judging by the angle of the cross hatching.
Normally when doing it in person you see moving picture all around, which is way more helpful.

Those timing marks don't say much. You use those to set the engine at TDC. But if I look at the picture with the cams, it's not at TDC, and if that is the corresponding crank position, it may be right? (I really don't understand the purpose of that picture, I would've done it differently.

But what is important is how it ran low on oil:
How many miles, was the red low oil light on?
Low on oil because of an oil change? or a leak?
To me it's even not clear what car or engine this is.
Does the engine tick?

To look for damage, at least a compression test on all cylinders has to be done, and maybe a leakdown test.
And the rodbearings and camshaft bearings have to be inspected, both visual and plastigage (so that is way more work than done now; this is 30min work, inspecting bearings is almost a day's work), especially the ones on cylinder 4. (rodbearings because they get the biggest load and are under heavy G forces, and the camshaft bearings because they are on the highest position in the engine; the ones on cyl. 4 because thats all the way in the back, where pressure is lowest.

I'd be inclined to go for option 1
Put the timing right and see if it will run OK.
Assuming this option is not expensive.

Doesn't look that bad,looks like the sump plug may have fell out, fill with oil and check adjust timing.