[Robe]

Well I can attest that this is prob true .. My own experience...
While visiting family in NY, My 2010 Jeep Grand Cherokee developed a Click which was diagnosed as a “Piston Slap”.
The local mech. said $3600 to replace the engine and would take 2 weeks. Unable to do that, I had the Jeep transported back to South Carolina for $650.00. We flew back home for a $400.00 tickets.
My local Mech put a rebuild in for $1800.00 in 2 days.
Upon returning home we discovered that our frig had quit a week before.. that was an additional $1300.00.
Right now our emer savings are gone.
If I needed $400.00 now I would have to go to the credit cards that are used only for emergencies

[TheZMan]

Under normal circumstances, one emergency shouldn’t kill you. Your story is 2+ emergency payouts, both greater than $400. Most of my life I couldn’t have handled that much stress at the same time.

That half the country can’t come up with $400 for an *emergency* is ridiculous. Either that, or the unemployed (plus never employed) is a hell of a lot higher than ~7%.

Or the respondents were lying to make sure their EBT cards kept getting filled.

[OA5599]

There might be more to your story, but piston slap will not cause sudden catastrophic engine failure. It's usually just an embarrassment and cause for more oil consumption.

If both mechanics said the entire engine had to be replaced instead of rebuilt, why not just drive back home in the Jeep instead of flying & towing?

[editor-surveyor]

Was your Jeep a v8 or a six?

The inline 6 cyl Jeep engine often has some piston slap, but it is usually of no consequence. It’s usually only noticeable
on a slow idle, and goes away above 700 RPM.
.

[Paladin2]

Piston Slap can exist for a long time without repair.

[Clump]

That is a string of bad breaks- and expensive ones at that.
I’ll pray you hit a streak of good ones.

[wally_bert]

If your mech is in Columbia, I would have an engine swap project to send his way. At the rate things are going, maybe next year. I don’t have the facilities, extra pairs of hands, free time, and experience. It hasn’t been since the late 80s since I tackled anything along those lines with friends. That would be for a CJ7 that I plan to work on at some point.

I am getting killed just normal living and not very extravagantly. I get to buy some tires for the first time in a few years and am kind of numb at the prices these days.

Maybe this weekend I can work out what I knocked out of line in my other pet project’s transmission a while back. That is a 65 Willys.

[Recompennation]

Unless that 6 banger was swapping holes with the pistons I would have turned up the radio and headed home. Just saying.