When I was at truck driver school my instructors said the price to overhaul a diesel engine on a big truck starts at around ten grand. Would it be safe to say that overhauling a Cat engine would most likely run a little more in terms of both dollars and time? 8)

 

I allways hear that a cat is the most $$$ to fix.

 

I've got a '03 C15, did an inframe in October at the KW dealer in Jackson, MS (not my first choice to have the work done there, but that's where the truck finally died). Included in the cost of the inframe was six new injectors @ nearly $500 a piece, a remanufactured head (also lost out on the full core charge for my head, as it was cracked) as well as about $500 to an outside machinist to cut the block down and my total was approximately $16,400 dollars. Oh yeah, that also included 4 new batteries and a couple of other minor things now that I think of it, so it was probably more like $15,700 for the rebuild itself. I could have saved $3,000 by not replacing the injectors and had I not had to replace the head, I would've saved another $3,000 - 4,000, so I guess it could be done for under $10k, but not much less.

A complete out of frame rebuild will run you around $20k or more though, depending on what you have done. As always, it all depends on what you have done. If you start replacing components like water pumps, oil pumps, etc., then the cost will sky rocket.

 

from my experiences, cat parts do cost more than their competitors...