Beware of ATK

[wilsonoffroad]

As most of you know I own a shop in Fayetteville, NC. I bought a 1990 F-250 and bought a 7.5 460 from ATK to put in it because they had a good warranty. I install motors weekly and have not had a problem with any motor other than 2 motors I have bought from ATK. I have installed crate motors from ATK only to find that they came to me with bent push rods.
So the first 460 I installed lasted less than a month then lost oil pressure. I pulled this motor and sent it back. They told me nothing was wrong with the motor upon inspection. I have never seen a perfectly good motor lose oil pressure and start knocking. So they sent me another motor. I installed it, and replaced every electroic on it including the injectors. The motor ran great I drove it from here to Huston TX and back. I drove it to Florida and on the way back it started missing, thought it was a bad spark plug wire. By the time I got back to Fayetteville I couldn't even run it in over drive.
I checked all my spark and injectors and everything was running right but my computer kept telling me I was running lean. I did a leak down test on the heads and was losing pressure I called ATK and they wanted me to pull the head off and see if it was leaking through the valves. I told them I didn't want to open the engine I would rather pull it and send it back they told me I had to pull the head. I did and it had two valves leaking so I sent them the head. They found it was bad because I marked the leaks with a marker. I installed the head back on and it still wouldn't run right I told them that I thought the other head was bad. They sent some guy to check it out we cranked it up and it started smoking, then once again it lost oil pressure. We pulled the pan and it was full of metal. Now they say that we put something in the engine and will not warranty it. I will never use an ATK engine again period. Out of the thousands of engines I have installed over the years I have yet to have on come apart due to me putting something in the engine. BEWARE OF ATK ENGINES!

 

[drkelly]

Man, that really sucks.

 

[upnover]

Sucks big time. A friend of mine has similar experience with Jasper. Two engines, and finally warranty time ran out so he was stuck with it. Not sure what happened to the first one, but second one had two galded cylinders. It only had 2300, not 1000, miles on it.
I would write them, and let them know that you will cross post this on every automotive site you can find on the net. Also, a letter to every shop you can get an address to also.
Sometimes the pen, or these days, the "net", is mightier than the sword.

 

[y2kcrawler]

Sounds like a job for the BBB!

 

[5.9ZJ]

I had a similar issue with a Jasper transmission. It grenaded after being in the car for 2 weeks. It also happened while visiting relatives up North. I was able to limp it to a transmission shop in the area. Jasper said they would get a replacement sent in 1 week. We couldn't wait that long so I put the van into 2nd gear and drove the 140 miles back home, redlining all the way. Traded the van in for our new Durango so the dealership couldn't deal with it. You should have seen the steam and heard the screaming coming from the motor on the way home. I couldn't believe it made it. 75 MPH sustained in 2nd gear for 2 hours.

Thanks for the heads-up about ATK. I was once considering them for a motor swap.

 

[GubNi]

You should personally take the engine to them and find a good place to dump it at their facility.

 

[Ron]

I had a similar issue with a Jasper transmission. It grenaded after being in the car for 2 weeks. It also happened while visiting relatives up North. I was able to limp it to a transmission shop in the area. Jasper said they would get a replacement sent in 1 week. We couldn't wait that long so I put the van into 2nd gear and drove the 140 miles back home, redlining all the way. Traded the van in for our new Durango so the dealership couldn't deal with it. You should have seen the steam and heard the screaming coming from the motor on the way home. I couldn't believe it made it. 75 MPH sustained in 2nd gear for 2 hours.
Thanks for the heads-up about ATK. I was once considering them for a motor swap.

Doesnt sound similar at all to me.
Jasper wanted to warrant your tranny, but you could not wait their standard terms, ATK refused to warrant his engine.

What correlation am I missing?

Or was Jasper expected to *poof* magic fairy dust and make a tranny appeear to you for free.

Jasper is a competitor of mine, and I would love trash them, but 1 week seem pretty reasonable to me.

 

[Archdukeferdinand]

1 week seem pretty reasonable to me.

Yeah, seems kinda childish to me. Warranty offered and 1 week is totally reasonable. I've had little things that take no effort to ship take longer than that for warranty claims.

Can't say that the response makes a lot of sense either. Warranty service offered in a timely manner and your only option was to give both tranny and motor unbridled servings of homemade hell? Guess you showed them, I'll bet jasper learned their lesson.

 

[NCJeepin]

I had a similar issue with a Jasper transmission. It grenaded after being in the car for 2 weeks. It also happened while visiting relatives up North. I was able to limp it to a transmission shop in the area. Jasper said they would get a replacement sent in 1 week. We couldn't wait that long so I put the van into 2nd gear and drove the 140 miles back home, redlining all the way. Traded the van in for our new Durango so the dealership couldn't deal with it. You should have seen the steam and heard the screaming coming from the motor on the way home. I couldn't believe it made it. 75 MPH sustained in 2nd gear for 2 hours.
Thanks for the heads-up about ATK. I was once considering them for a motor swap.

FAIL