2001 2.4 Voyager Blown Engine
 

Hi, I've been helping a neighbour out with their car who was told by a local garage that it's headgasket had gone. When I removed the head to inspect I found out that the piston had shattered and the engine was economically a write off.

So I've been looking at replacement engines for the car and they seem to be hard to source in the uk and are selling for stupid amounts of money (around a grand). Although the 2.0 engines are much cheaper (around £250) so my question is what are the differences and would it be an easy swap? Or is it better to break and scrap the car as the rest of it is in good condition?

I assume it's a post 2001 shape voyager you are working on. If so the 2.0 engine was never available on the post 2001 voyagers, only on the pre 2001 voyagers had 2.0 engines.

So I think using a 2.0 on a 2001 voyager is a non starter. The engine mounts etc are probably different.

Unless you can find a 2.4 for £500 or so, I'd cut my losses and scrap the car......especially if the engine will cost £1000. Voyager parts are pricey, so should you break it yourself on e-bay, I'm sure you could make £500 easily.

Thanks for you advice, breaking it seems the best option then.

It seems odd how the piston shattered as I've seen them melt from overheating but never shatter. Is headgasket failure common on them at lower mileages?

I would say so, unless you happen to come across a cheap 2.4 engine.

Maybe the piston started to seize in the cylinder hence the shattering.

The 2.4 (and 2.0 I believe) engines built up to 1999 were very prone to head gasket failure at any mileage because of a design flaw where some cylinder head bolt holes were slightly too short for the bolts. So the head would not quite seat properly on the gasket.

This flaw was fixed from 1999 onwards, but it's not out of the question that they had a stock pile of pre modification engines that they were using in 2001 cars.

Or maybe not. As you know head gasket failure in a 10 year old car is not unheard of on alloy headed engines, regardless of mileage.