Well today I got the call from my son that he had to pull over off the side of the road because he was hearing some knocking coming from the engine. Got the car to a mechanic and the engine looks to be done for. Checked the oil and found metal shavings in it. He's had the car for less than 6 months. I feel bad for him, but another learning lesson for him at 17. 146k miles on it and it's now toast. Told him to stick to Toyota or Honda lol.

 

I would never recommend someone buy a sports car as their only car. They aren't built to last, they're built to perform.

Can't go wrong with a Corolla or civic, heck a manual transmission ford fucus is a good choice too.

 

Oh I agree. My son has learned his lesson I hope. I try to stick to the Toyotas and Hondas for the kids first cars which he did have a civic, but saved and got the G35 instead. Told him if he wanted something sportier and luxurious to stick to looking for a Lexus IS250, but again he didn't want to listen to me. Now he's paying the price unfortunately. Looks like it's going to cost him around $2k for an engine with tax and delivery. Shop quoted $5k for the entire swap. Thankfully I have a step dad that's a mechanic and has full blown work garage at home with a lift. He's doing it for free. Then we're going to sell it and move on.

 

I've owned a couple of tuned civics, a couple of lexus' and acuras.

G engines are solid and up there.

Push any 14 year old car .... close to the point of abuse ... it will blow ... regardless of brand.

First car should always be a throw-away.

 

Agreed! His first car was a Nissan Sentra when he was 15 which is what he learned to drive with. At 16 he sold that and bought a Honda Civic. He ended up selling that to his brother so he could get a Toyota Tacoma. Got a great deal on that and then wanted the G35. Made some good cash on selling the Tacoma and bought this G35. He's made money everytime he's sold one of his cars. I've had all three of my kids start off with beater civics. That's how I learned. I usually have them keep that for a year before moving on to something else. In his case he's a big time saver, so he saved enough to upgrade when he wanted.

Looks like we're going to move forward with an engine swap and then probably sell this one. I think with this engine blowing, the fuel cost and increased tire wear issues he's been having he's now of the mindset he needs a more economical car.

 

Honestly the IS250 is just as prone to crapastrophic failure as any other sport car.

The bigger issue though is WHY DID THE ENGINE LET GO?

These engines can be absolutely 100% thrashed on and will hold together as long as there is oil in the crankcase. The reason I don't suggest sports cars for most folks is mostly due to the complex SUSPENSIONS which have 3x as many pieces that all wear out rapidly. Typically a sports car at 125k miles needs a full suspension rebuild, wheel bearings, tie rod ends, brakes, clutch, engine/transmission mounts, struts.

That's a significant amount of wearable parts to be throwing at a car, a beater with a macpherson strut front end is significantly less complex and thus cheaper to maintain.

The VQ engine however is solid, the only ones I've seen with engine failure (not related to boost) were due to running the oil low.

If it's rod knocking that's almost certainly what happened, make sure to impress on your son the importance of checking the oil level EVERY SINGLE WEEK in your car. If used to be a common habit that while you were filling up the gas tank you popped the hood and checked your oil level. Nowadays most people just stand at the nozzle and daydream off into the sunset instead of checking their oil.

 

Yeah when it started knocking the first thing I did was check the oil level and it was good. It actually just had an oil change last month at the dealership.

 

Well that's unfortunate, have your step-dad pull the bearings and lay them all out in order and take a good picture of them. I'm curious to see what condition they're in, probably destroyed but I'm still curious.

On the topic of rod knock, my 2000 Sierra 2500HD has been rod knocking for at least 5 years when the engine is cold, I still tow equipment near it's maximum payload but I make sure to fully warm the engine before driving it. Gotta love the LS1 6.0L engine Oil pressure is quite a bit lower than when I bought the truck but it still holds 20psi at idle and 40psi when driving so...

EDIT: 300k miles on that LS1 and almost all of it's miles have had at LEAST 5000 lbs worth of trailer behind it, normally it tows 10k lbs.

 

Ohh something else I forgot to mention, while the existing engine is out pull the galley covers and see if the gasket is all cracked. I'm pretty convinced something had to have been causing low oil pressure, the HR isn't widely known for drinking oil and you said the oil level was fine. That makes me think galley gaskets were leaking but not enough to cause the P0011, P0021 codes, just enough to slightly starve the bearings.

 

Sounds good. I'll let you know what we find when we pull it. Might be a few weeks.

 

I was thinking galley gaskets as well.

Oil pressure light work as well? These motors are NOT known to detonate like this.

Not saying you won’t find a story but I bet I could count on fingers posts around the net.

I’d stay away from the direct injection only IS 250… at least the IS 350 has that dual setup with port injection as well to keep valves cleaner.

 

I was actually able to sell the car, so we won't be replacing the engine. The new owner will be taking on that job.