Hurley Engine Failure- Autopsy

[John Yorke]

As Ant has said, we all know about litigation, but, it always seems to end up as \'slag Hurley\'s off\' on these threads, and from my [limited] experience they cant be all bad otherwise they would not be one of the longer established rotary companies in the UK who seem to be quite well regarded abroad.

[johnf]

"What mileage was on the engine out of interest John?"

My car has what might be considered an unusual life - It was imported brand new \'in box\' [1998] by the original owner who also lives in the Midlands. He wanted a bit more power so had Hurley rebuild and port a perfectly good engine. They passed a two year warrenty on to me on the condition that they look over it when I bought it. cost me around £150 if my memory is correct [a bit steep I thought at the time].

I had a my first rotary service with them, around £180 the bill was most unspecific as to what they actuakky did but it drove fine.

Through the club I got to know Carl and moved my servicing / maintenance over to him. It was during a remap test with him that the engine gave out, not a tip but a shaft bearing I think.

Carl did have some comments about the engine components when he striped it down, can\'t remember exactly what but they weren\'t favourable.

I don\'t hold Hurley responsable for what happened and just put it down to bad luck.

I bought it with 32k on the clock, the failure happened at around 48k.

Just one of those things, the big thing for me is that with the help of Brian [who sold me a good second hand lump] and Carl who did the transplant at a very reasonable price I wasn\'t off the road for all that long.

I don\'t have any feelings one way or the other about Hurley but choose to use ppl who support this club. I think any British rotary specialist should be on here where they can stand up and be counted. Hurley obviously feel this community isn\'t worth them getting involved with, their choice but it doesn\'t make sense to me, look at all the potential customers.

John

[Martiny]

if my engine lasted 2 years i would be over the moon!!!

i\'m slightly curious and dont want to start an argument but...... why is it when Hurleys is mentioned its a free for all slag off but as soon as its one of the (lets say)  popular tuners,  the thread is closed and dissapears!   Not really fair, and the only thing i can think of is Hurleys arnt a supporting vendor.  Although the reason for thread closure is fear of court action not because they are a supporting vendor ( i am not sticking up for hurleys as i know their history)

Sorry for the thread hijack John B but i feel that our opinions of service providers should be aired.  Thats how you find people who provide a good service.

I agree here 100% - why are some vendor service threads slammed shut and not others??

[deanflowers]

The reason i bad mouth them is is the fact the fact i spent £6500 in October 04 on a car with a supposidly brand new engine with a receipt signed by Mr hurley, The engine gave compression results of 4.5 and would not start most of the time after completing 13,000 miles with regular servicing.

The car has now been off the road since April 2005, i hace bought a rebuild kit but have to buy more parts.

The reason i bad mouth them is the fact that iam out of pocket by about £2000 and still counting and want my car back on the road.

To be honest even if they offerred to put it right which they didnt i wouldnt trust them to do a good job.

[iaint]

Threads generally get jumped on when they get wildly out of control, non-factual/unsubstantiated posts are made OR the parties involved contact us to ask for action.

In the third case the thread is reviewed and posts allowed to stand or are removed as WE see fit.  It is OUR judgement call and WE do it on the back of the mandate of the club\'s MEMBERS.

Thread tidied so we can see the important stuff.  My answer to Tony\'s question above left for simplicity

[Jonathan_F]

I have plenty of evidence to Hurleys poor practice but in this case there were many mistakes made. I\'ll even admit my own!
Here\'s a little story to make all you Hurley \'customers\' smile.
I was a t Hurleys trying to buy some gaskets. They had a car on the ramps with the engine out. It had been there the week before.
John (hurleys engineer) told me he had stripped the engine wednesday,built it thursday and fitted it friday (that morning). He had taken it for a testdrive and the shaft nut on the turbe had unscrewed an gone through the engine. John had continue to drive it back to the workshop...Not good practice. Glad it wasn\'t my car.
I didn\'t hang around long enough to see the inards of the engine but the thick black oil pouring out of the exhausts told me all I need to know.
But made me think.

What sort of a engine rebuild company puts old engine oil into a new engine???
My oil is still not opaque at 350 miles.
Not right in my opinion. Cheap skate corner cutting.

Jon

[asp]

after i rebuilt my engine i changed the oil @50 miles,it was black,if you didnt watch him put the oil in how can you say it was old oil,

oil mixed with soot from the exhaust could make itlook dirtyer also

[oldone]

Did an oil change at 700 miles and it looks like new !!!!!!!!!! :cheers

[asp]

Did an oil change at 700 miles and it looks like new !!!!!!!!!! :cheers

700 miles from a fresh rebuilt engine is a bit much dont u think!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kev-yorks]

All depends what oil your putting in Kriss as he\'s running full synthetic its probably overkill.
Kevin

[deanflowers]

Just been and replaced the parts from my 13,000 mile hurley engine and its cost me a small fortune.

1 rotor
2 housings - one looked like it had a tip go previous
rear end plate

but to be honest all the parts i can use are close to being out of the allowable tolerance.

Basically the engine i have stripped down has been a joke

[mullins]

I agree here 100% - why are some vendor service threads slammed shut and not others??

My question aswell seeing as my RX-Motors gripe was slammed shut before I could even list all the problems they\'ve caused me.

[dai capp]

A friend of mine had his engine rebuilt by Hurley.

He had a couple of initial issues - pipes not reconnected correctly that sort of thing which proved somewhat inconvenient at the time and smacked of shoddy workmanship.

However, the work was done 8 years ago, he has it looked after by Re-worx and it has never missed a beat. He warms it up properly, looks after it very well but drives it as it\'s meant to be driven. So all in all the actual rebuild seems to have been OK...

Having said that neither of us have our cars looked after by them for two reasons, firstly due to the initial poor workmanship on my mates car and secondly because they seem to have a bit of an attitude.

I looked at a car they had for sale which was in pretty untidy condition. They were asking top price for and they said something along the lines of \'it is what it is, so if you don\'t like it don\'t f******* buy it\'. So I didn\'t buy it...

Cheers

DC

[John Yorke]

Never mind slammed shut, I just get removed

[stuart wizy]

you can be the best engine builder in the world and still make mistakes, we all do it.
its just a bummer that its your motor!!
on the other hand there are so many attributes that can cause a rotary to fail or loose compression, and many parts can fail that the builder believes to be correct.
If an engine has popped due to overboosting, bad tuning or oil starvation then the error is down to the tuner or the owner of the car in most cases.