Philsykes

Advice needed,

I've got a MY97 UK Scoob with 90,000 miles - so well outside warranty.

When cold it has the dreaded piston slap noise, but when warm it's as quiet as a mouse(apart from SS backbox).

1. Is this engine going to blow up or will it always just be noisy when cold?.

2. If it blows up will I need a short engine or are there other options?

All help appreciated.

Phil.

Luis

I've got MY97, 136000km with exactly the same noise. There was a web page mantioned somewhere in this forum which has quite good explanation of this "effect". But briefly, it's a 4th piston problem, known to the dealers and covered by warranty. Too bad both of us are out of it already. But, to be honest, I don't care too much, as long as I'm going to get a new Scooby in maybe a month...and it's a company car, so I care even less. I heard that fixing it requires some kind of special piston and would cost around 500 GBP...that is, if you do it in Lithuania and if I did the currency conversion right.
..And, by the way, I drove to Corsica and back this summer (~8000km) with that noise, reaching almost 200km/h in Germany...and guess what? - Nothing! It still goes OK. My dealer said it didn't make sense for me to fix it, "'cause it's not too critical problem" and I'll get a new car anyway.

Good luck,
Luis