I'm not sure if this belongs here but in my years on H-T I've noticed that people in the All Motor forum are about 1000x more knowledgeable than those in the car-specific ones, so I thought I'd post here. Thanks for any help in advance!

Here's the situation- my friend rolled through a 5 inch puddle at under 15mph on very light throttle and seized his OE B18C1. When it was towed to the dealer, they said that rebuilding the motor would be more expensive than buying a new longblock no matter what the extent of the damage was and, since insurance was paying the bills, my friend didn't ask too many questions in light of the prospect of getting a new motor...so no one has opened this thing up. Having no idea what to ask for the motor, I tossed up a thread in the FS forum to take offers and am getting PMs in the $350 range.

So I'm wondering a few things. For one, I'm wondering if $350 is a fair price to both parties. For another, I'm wondering if someone like me, who has limited knowledge of how a motor works, could possible open this thing up an determine the damage once and for all? If so, what do I do?

Thanks in advance, and my apologies for the n00b-tastic content.

 

350 for the "irreparable" GSR motor? yeah that's fair. Considering the block is probably shot, so they're paying for the head pretty much.

 

What would determine the block being shot? I highly doubt it's cracked or anything, I think the motor just seized up, maybe a bent rod or whatever. He didn't go through the water at high rpms or while accelerating or anything, and nothing sounded like it blew out, the car just stalled.

Anyway as I said, I'm a novice to this kind of thing. Good to know that $350 is fair...I don't want either party getting a shitty deal.