Thread: Just Bought a Lemon (engine knock)...Thoughts on Moving Forward?

Hello all,

So about a week ago I bought a 95 200sx SE-R with 140k miles. Paid $1500 for it, didn't notice the engine knock right away, but it became apparent after a day or two and just had it checked out by my mechanic. Thought it was the timing chain, initially, but he put a stethoscope on it and is positive the motor is toast.

What I am looking for is a reliable car for commuting that is a little fun to drive also. What would be the cost effective thing to do right now: somehow get it fixed, swap the engine, part it out, or just cut my losses? I would put it back up on craigs for what I paid for it, but I couldn't do that morally, unless It was for a few hundred bucks.

All of that being said, what is worth money from this car?

Thanks in advanced!

Junkyard engines aren't that expensive. We've paid anywhere from $300 to $500 for junkyard engines in the past... Why not just swap engines and have yourself a nice commuter?

Sorry to hear about your 'sour' purchase. Not sure you would get your money back if you parted it but some questions to consider are: Can you part it out yourself? Do you have the room? Swapping in an OE replacement motor would probably be the most cost effective UNLESS you can rebuild the motor yourself....but do you want to? Not sure you're able to post pics yet as this is your first post but if you can, you should...or maybe a link? The condition of the car would help determine it's worth.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the responses guys. The car itself is in great shape, clutch is fine, shifts good, power everything works, AC needs to be recharged, new plugs and wires, new distributer, paint looks good for such an old car.

The SR16DE should be a lot easier to find, right? Would it be worth it to step down from the SR20DE? Would that even work or are there a lot parts which are not compatible?

My mechanic said that it's probably not worth rebuilding the motor, just because it would take a while to properly diagnose, and no promise that it will fix it for good anyways.

If you are in the US SR20DEs are all over, not sure where you will find an SR16DE. Swap the motor with another lowport SR20DE and move on.

^ what he says!!!!!

Depending on what state you're in, you could still be covered by lemon laws and still be able to return this lemon.


Barring that, I believe your best bet is to find a similar or identical year SR20DE for ~$400 close-by on Car-Part.com--Used Auto Parts Market and swap it in.


If you decide to sell, good shells with blown motors bing close to $1,000 these days.

Thanks for the input, that car-part.Com has some pretty good deals, better than what I've found so far. I think this is a project I can tackle myself, especially with the how-to article. However, I might just have a shop do it depending how much I can have it done for. I'll update this post once I make some moves!

So there are a decent amount of sr20det motors out there...what do I need to know before considering this over the original engine?

^ more than $1500 to get it all set up properly for daily driver reliability.. lol