cracked head q's

[frontera.sport]

hi
i dont know where to put this either here or the tech section but anyway here goes

i neighbour of my grandad had a frontera i think it was the 2.2i in muave purple and told my grandad after it was down seriously on power after 2yrs he said that when he went to sell it at a dealership that the mechanic their found a large(ish) crack in the cylinder head
is this a common problem or is just bad maintanence or just plain bad luck?

thanks
rob

[Sir-Doris]

I wouldnt say it was overly common. Some early 2.2's had weak bearing shells and a few are known to throw a conrod through the block. Although with plenty of regular servicing they are a strong engine.

[FUDDY MUCKER]

[Red Oktober]

yup ....i have to agree with fuddy on this ....

the 2.2 petrol engines are propably the weakest engine vx have put in their cars ...have seen too many 2.2's throw rods out .. alltho it's generally the block that goes ..not the head

[frontera.sport]

hmm right so really there not such a good engine but then again it is pulling a fair ol" weight but what my grandad's freind had was a fair bit odd then ? i dont think his ever put a foot wrong before this i think e had it for 4-5 years and then after he went shopping one day about a 30 mile round trip he said it cut out and wouldnt re start for a while then after that he said" it feels rather under powered? wont budge past 60-65 downhill or on motorway" but after he serviced the engine flushed the rad (cleared that out) 4 flushes with the pressure washer on the low setting then a full engine flush and new cat costing 150 quid or something around this mark and still felt under powered and lots more things were done but i cant remember wat was done but after he drove it knowing it was under powered getting worse everytime he drove it and got worse in the summer to the point where it was struggling to rev past 2-3k and cutting out at anything more than 50mph after the summer had passed he then took it to the dealership and this is where the mechanic found the problem that the local garage apparently missed? and the dealer ship gave him just 50 quid in p/x for some kind of lada 4x4 anybody know what this might be?

thanks
rob

[Red Oktober]

Lada Niva's are very very good offroad ....

[dandan]

Thanks to a lot of research when I was looking for my first Frontera I have to agree about the 2.2 ecotec. It is essentially a 2.0 made "taller" to increase the stroke and therefore torque. This seems to have resulted in "unstable" bottom ends with the shells and rods suffering the most.
Whilst there have been several LET conversions of the 2.2 (LET head pretty much bolts straight on) they have been extensively modified and internals heavily upgraded.

Anywhere between 60k and 90k miles seems to be the "proving ground" for the 2.2 with most failures happening around then.

[Sir-Doris]

As mentioned in previous posts the big end bearings went on mine at 80k or thereabouts. I replaced mine with a VX recon engine. Was advised at the time that bearing shells were weak in older engines, not so in the newer 2.2's (after 98 B series) or recon engines as stronger bearing shells are used.

[woodwizzard]

Are these the same engines as the 2.2 vectra? I may be wrong but aren't they also prone to snapping cam chains.

[Sir-Doris]

Frontera 2.2 is a cam belt, not chain. Think same engine more or less though. Different sump or something along those lines.