CAT Rebuild or Replace?

I'll drive right past several local shops around here right to the local CAT. They charge $115 an hour for motor work and $85 an hour for anything else. They stand behind their work. Unlike cut rate shops who in my experience inflate hours on the job that's even if they fix the problems. That said one learns quickly to do as much as they can on their own.

Cheap shops are like cheap cut rate carriers imo. You get what you pay for. Sometimes though you pay a premium and still get shafted. I will pay a good shop their rate without complaint if they can do the job right the first time. Hard to find shops that can do the job around here.

A crate motor will cost you over $40,000. Changing from a CAT to a Cummins will also be expensive as hell. Really your cheapest option is to rebuild what you have. And it will probably cost more than the truck itself is worth.

You want to trade into something with a Cummins or C15 you need to do it now while that C13 is still running. Because when it goes down you basically have a tractor worth scrap price on your hands. When you rebuild it you will never get what you sunk into it money wise, unless it is a half ### shade tree job, so at that point you might as well work it and make money.

When my motor went down I had 3 choices. Spend $20,000+ on an inframe. Buy a $25,000 truck and start over again working bugs out of someone elses problem truck. Quit and sell my tractor to a junk yard. I was not going to finance anything especially not brand new. It seems crazy to dump more money than something is worth into the motor but 3 years later it's made that money back and then some so not so bad.

 

If you need financing not going to hurt to check out what they offer. Just another option if your credit is good. Might be competitive or might not.

 

There are more headaches when changing engine brands such as motor mounts, engine wiring harnesses and so on that can really make it too expensive to be worth it. As far as rebuilding versus a drop-in, that is like comparing apples to oranges. If you want to cover all your bases, you have to replace the engine with a rebuilt drop in, period. You can overhaul an engine 100 different ways and still not replace every single seal and gasket. When you overhaul do you replace the oil pump, oil cooler, turbos, water pump, vibration dampener, and so on? The list can go on and on. Even just a basic "overhaul" is only new pistons and liners. What about the engine sensors, wire harness, actuators? Again, there are several parts and gaskets that never get touched during an overhaul but are also worn and ready to fail. With a drop in engine everything has been redone. Plus, there is warranty on everything, not just what the overhaul shop touched. Replacing an engine will always be more expensive, but I think what you get in return is worth every penny. While the engine is out, this is a good time for a new clutch or motor mounts, or anything else that is easy and fast to do with no engine in the way.

 

I couldn't ever see putting a crate motor in anything, except a glider, as being cost effective. For a basic platinum inframe from CAT you're looking at $20,000. I had that and some extras above/beyond standard platinum inframe. In the 3 years since that there have been zero issues with the motor.

 

I have a COLUMBIA 07.with c 13 (kcb).Now I have 1m78k miles and still running. I change only the cylinderpacks and bothturbos.my Mpg is 6.5 +.better .Fix you engine .this is better and cheaper then buy a new truck with Big monthly Payment.

 

I have an 04 MBN that will be 4 years in Sept with a Cat Platinum re-build. No major issues. It came with a 3 year warranty that is actually a warranty, and I did buy the extra 4th year. You get what you pay for in this area.

 

I see 9400's without motors or trannys for 2-6000 all over the Internet and they don't sell. Get the cash from the scrap yard and be on your way.

 

This is what I was quoted 2 years ago. At the time they had 0% financing.

 

Just my .02 cents. I will never take my truck to a cat shop, but I have a good local shop that I trust. I had a estimate of about 16,000 (give or take a few grand, my memory sucks) to rebuild my 6nz. Same parts the cat house would use, still in the cat database as rebuilt, only a 1 year warranty. That same job at cat would have been 20 to 24,000 but with a longer warranty.

That's a lot of extra coin for 2 more years warranty. When I'm my shade tree opinion if something is going to fail on an overhaul it's going to do it sooner than later or be something they didn't touch in the overhaul to begin with