On my mission to find a new engine for my 20VT I came across an ad from L&M on ebay advertising reconditioned engines.

HAs anyone used them before and had good/bad experiences etc?

ANy help would be appreciated as I am likely to spend a reasonable amount of money on this engine.....

I believe you can get brand new 20vt engines from Joe, Rog or AA for very reasonable money.

just keep well away from L&M beleve me i know.

Although I've never used them, I *very* nearly bought a car they were selling a few months ago.

I walked away from there in the end, just didn't like the guy there at all.

As Pete says, there are plenty of recommended alternatives.

I see.

I was in contact with Joe about an engine, and am waiting to hear back from him. Just seemed good to have an engine that all major jobs had been taken care of.

Trying to find out more about an engine from Flea too, so hopefully get something sorted by next week....... I hope.....

When the engine is out you can do all the major jobs anyway. You should worry more about the condition of the engine rather than the extra jobs done.

New engines were available from Steve at AA for just under £2k last time I spoke to him.

Oh yes, I agree. But if the engine arrived ready to drop in then that would be muchos better as it would save me some time.

Was that 2k for a new ready built engine do you know Matt?

Do L&M have that bad a reputation? I'm aware of people using them on this forum - only negative I have heard is that they can be expensive.

I've been down to their workshop before and they all seemed very helpful.

I'm not sure, thats why I was asking. Looking at spending the best part of £1000 on a re-conditioned engine so wanted to make sure the place was reputable first in case of any issues I might have with warranty etc.

Hopefully I can buy Flea's engine thats for sale, but we will see.

I think L & M are under new management. I think a few years ago they had some pretty poor reviews, but supposed to be better now. Thankfully my dad runs his own small private garage after running a Fiat dealership for 15 years!

L and M are expensive, I've been a few times and have spent a small fortune. Most of the work has had to be done again and they used clone parts instead of fiat...(my thermostat lasted about 6 months before failing again)

My advice would be to keep clear and look at Flea or Joe, there is a reason L&M are not part of this forum...Joe, Flea, Roger and the other trusted guys are all on here and stand or fall by their reputation gained by their work quality and costs.

I'd think it'd just be a bare engine Fran - i.e. no mounts, manifolds etc which you'd need to swap over. Probably need to add VAT ontop of that too.

If it were me, I'd go the second hand route. Keep the current one and rip it apart and see what you can do with it. Never hurts to have spares. If you dont have space to keep it and Matty doesn't have space for you to keep it there, I could perhaps make a small space in my garage if you wanted to store it for a bit?