Background: I don't know much about diesels and even less about engines in general. I have a 1998 3500 express van with a diesel engine and a 125K miles. I bought the van from Dealer "a". Dealer A sells a lot of pickup trucks and vans.


I have a 1 month 1000 mile (50-50 powertrain) warranty on the van. When driving the van home from the dealer, the engine started making a tapping/knocking noise that would increase in frequency as the engine was revved. I immediately called dealer A. We had it towed to chevy dealership. Chevy dealership says engine is shot. We tow the van to a repair place that specializes in diesels. They say the engine isn't shot, just needs new injectors, which they replaced. Van appears to run well now, no more knocking/tapping.


Question:


Normally I wouldn't be concerned about this but due to my warranty running out soon, my concern is that they might have somehow masked the problem vs fixing it. What are your guys thoughts? When I went back to chevy dealership, the rude diesel mechanic says that he's sure the engine is shot, and it is a possibility that it was bad injectors but he didn't think so. His response was that "who knows?"





Any thoughts?





Thanks


Neil

Hey Neil,


What do you plan on saying to the dealer? I would at least bring it to his attention that mechanic "A" says it's shot and get a compression test done ASAP to confirm or deny suspesions of engine condition. It should have ~400 psi on all eight cylinders.

A bad injector, that is one that streams fuel into the chamber rather than atomizing it certainly can cause a knock and white smoke and can also damage the piston. If injectors fixed the problem, then this was probably the case and I wouldnt worry about it.

Ok,


Thanks guys..


Texas, you gave me some peace of mind... Quantum, i think i'll get the compression test done just to be sure.


Thanks again!