Which Esprit?

[amartin]

Hi people,

I am looking to buy my first Esprit and wondering if you chaps could give any advice or opinions.

I'm looking at Esprit 2.2 Turbo (which may be great to drive and lots of fun, but my fear is that small engines with turbo's tend to blow!) High servicing costs.

Or go for a more modern 3.5 V8 which can take it, I don't know thats why I am asking you guys.

Cheers

[h2dca]

I guess it depends on your budget, the 2.2 engine has been around in various forms for ages, is a very powerful and wonderful engine considering it is a four pot, as for blowing up I do not think it is common but there are some real gurus on here who can comment. As for reliability only fault with my 89 SE was a siezed valve (EBPV) on the exhaust as I left it standing for 4 weeks when away on business. No faults with my first S4 and touch wood none with this one so far, servicing can be pricy but there are numerous specialists. As for V8s cannot comment but there are threads about the earlier cars.

Good luck

[amartin]

Budget is fairly flexible, from 10K - 18K GBP and would also need to know where the nearest specialist is in Berkshire, England

[the pits]

I had a 2.2 turbo SE (264bhp) which never missed a beat. It even got pinched and the scumbags still couldn't blow it up. The 2.2 is a very strong engine. I also had a V8 GT more recently and it kept needing work for leaking cylinder linings, apparently a common fault with the V8. If you get one check this work has been done or yours will spend weeks in the garage like mine did. An easy way to check is to look at the coolant level, if it's really low the owner may have the problem but not even know about it.