Places that do a cylinder head exchange?

[Ade]

Anyone know who does exchange / reconditioned cylinder heads?

EuroSpares (I think) are one, but who else does em?

cheers,
ade

[android]

Eurocarparts (ECP)do them, so do German Swedish and French, (GSF), for around Ԛ£500

I have no experience of the quality, although I believe a lot of the ECP stuff is sourced in India.

E30Adam seems to think the quality is a bt suspect, but they are guaranteed for a year I guess. Quite a few zoners have used them, but no-one seems to be slagging them off, so maybe they're OK. They require you to surrender the one you have too, as an exchange. If its too knackered they charge a couple of hundred more.

I personally would prefer to try and get a second hand head and fit my decent BMW bit s onto it. They come up occasionally.

www.eurocarparts.com

or

www.gsfcarparts.com

[Andy325i]

3 years ago (ish)
My head went on my 325i, I used a Euro Reconditioned head, it lasted 107 miles (of VERY gentle driving), before you could (after cooling of course) watch the water run out of the exhaust as fast as you could put it in....

They exchanged this head for another reconditioned head, which on start up we relised that the center cam journal was oversized, hence almost ALL the the oil to the top end poured out of the center hole, leaving no oil pressure to feed the oil spray bar. Also the rocker shafts were almost impossible to take out No good again then.

I only looked at the reconditioned option because I thought new would be too expensive. But after two faulty heads. I thought enough is enough, phoned ECP, they quoted a silly price. Phoned C3 BMW for a BARE head Brand new, that was about 400 and something pounds, phoned ECP back again and said take the seconed reconditioned head back, I have a brand new bare one for 400 and something, they then mached the price within a few pounds. I bought a new set of valves from C3 for about 125 pounds and put it all back together.

Sorted.

Spoke to a lot of people that have used reconditioned heads (welded) and most have had problems.

Somebody once explained it:

Imagine a piece of rubber band. Over a period of streching it becomes weak, then eventually it snaps, you repair where it snapped but it is likely to snap again somewhere else because the remaining part is still fatigued.

I think the reconditioned (complete) head was about the same price as the NEW bare head.

Sorry for the long winded post but would hate you to go through all the wasted time as I did.

My only regret now is that I didn't have the new head gas flowed at the time....oh well....

[Ade]

Where are c3 BMW based?
Have you got a link or phone number for them?

cheers for the advice!

[Brianmoooore]

There's a firm I bought a head off once that I would advise you to stay well clear of.
Can't remember the exact name , but it was one that clearly showed they were in the exchange cylinder head business.
The head that they supplied was badly welded (in spite of assurances that they didn't use welded heads), the rocker shafts had been hammered in to such an extent that the belled out ends wouldn't go through the cutouts in the end of the head, and it had been skimmed so much that the pistons hit the head when hot. Cracked within a year.

[Andy325i]

Where are c3 BMW based?
Have you got a link or phone number for them?

cheers for the advice!

C3, not exatly sure, nr london I think off the top of my head (no pun intended!!!) The phone no is: 020 8778 0808