2009 Tiffin Phaeton Engine Rebuild

[deholdt]

Our 2009 Phaeton has a Cummins ISC 8.3 needs to have hte engine rebuilt. Cummins gave me an estimate of $66,000 and a reman engine is $78,000. Sounds ridiculous. Anyone have an experience with this?

[bgum]

Go somewhere else.

[Grit_dog]

eHoefler wrote:
A long block is not the same as a complete engine, it is the block, crank, rods, pistons, and cam. That is it. You still have to reman the heads, turbo, pump, injectors, valve train, gaskets, etc.. Then you have to flush cooling system and after cooler. Not to mention all the other parts that need replaced, coolant hoses, charged air boots, fuel lines, filters, oil, coolant, etc.. The access is nothing but a pain in the ass and removal of the engine/transmission assembly is the only option to even try to work on it. It has to be dropped from the bottom or slid out the back. That takes a lot of man power and equipment. Sound's steep, but that is what you get in a pusher motor home

You are wrong about a long block. It includes the head. There is no internal/machine work required w/a long block. Any engine.

Regardless, at least the OP recognized someone trying to rip him off.
Now to find an honest shop that will first diagnose it correctly since the OP was very vague about what went wrong with the motor.
Leakin injector burned up a hole? Sleeve and piston
Lifted the head? = top end work only generally.
Rod knock? Yeah now maybe in the short or long block scenario.
Not enough info to even begin to guess, other than the prices he was quoted are about 300% greater than they should be “if” he actually needs and engine.
At that cost, it’s better to just write off the Moho and have it hauled away…

[Gooma]

I would find another shop. That's the "we don't want to do it price."
What makes you think the engine needs replaced?
How many miles are on the engine?
Unless it's been mistreated a Cummins should last a million miles.

[haste_maker]

The average in frame rebuild cost for an 18 wheeler Cummins is about $40,000, your price quote is much more than that, that engine may have to be removed to rebuild.

[eHoefler]

A long block is not the same as a complete engine, it is the block, crank, rods, pistons, and cam. That is it. You still have to reman the heads, turbo, pump, injectors, valve train, gaskets, etc.. Then you have to flush cooling system and after cooler. Not to mention all the other parts that need replaced, coolant hoses, charged air boots, fuel lines, filters, oil, coolant, etc.. The access is nothing but a pain in the ass and removal of the engine/transmission assembly is the only option to even try to work on it. It has to be dropped from the bottom or slid out the back. That takes a lot of man power and equipment. Sound's steep, but that is what you get in a pusher motor home

[SuperBus]

I just rebuilt a 6.7l out of my Ram 3500. Just parts and machine work were close to $11,000. That cost doesn't count removal of the engine, tear down, diagnosis, reassembly, and reinstallation. That was all courtesy of myself and was easily 40 - 50 manhours of my labor. Some shops are charging $180/hour nowadays in the Midwest, and seeing you are on the East Coast it is probably much higher. While that is not 100% relevant, it just goes to show that things have gotten very expensive (as we all know). Close to $80k seems like a lot for that job though, but I'd bet at least half is labor, leaving the rest to bigger and perhaps more expensive parts. Good luck!

I am curious, what went wrong with the engine? I am "slightly" partial to Cummins, but even with that aside, they are normally rock solid for 100s of thousands miles under pretty intense duty cycles (*exception the 6.7l above 🙂 )

[Grit_dog]

Yup that’s ridiculous.

[BB_TX]

Sounds awfully high. Googling shows rebuilt long blocks at under $20,000. Hard to believe it would take that difference in labor to replace it. Shop around.

[CA_Traveler]

It's expensive but what is wrong? Some issues can be fixed w/o engine removal. And probably some shops don't want to do any repairs w/o removing the engine so shop around.

AFAIK Cummins has a set number of hours for a repair and a higher hourly rate for RVs. Justified based on engine access or we don't really want this job.