One standard: Grade A

Grade A is a buying rule, not a sales label

Most used-engine exporters grade after they buy. Stock arrives, it gets sorted into A, B, C and Core, and each tier is priced accordingly. That is a perfectly rational way to run a yard, and it is also the reason grade disputes are the single most common complaint in this trade: the grade is a commercial decision taken by the seller, after the money has already been spent on the stock.

We apply the standard at the other end of the transaction. Our team inspects every unit at the moment of intake in Guangzhou, against one bar, and an engine either passes every check or we do not buy it. B, C and Core are classifications we use to reject stock, never products we sell. There is no lower tier in our catalogue because there is no lower tier in our warehouse.

The practical consequence for you is that the grade cannot slip between quotation and loading. There is nothing below Grade A in the building to slip to.

The four checks

Mechanical. Rotation check plus a compression test on every cylinder, scored against the published minimums in the protocol below and run on the intake floor by our own team before the purchase is made. An engine that does not turn cleanly is not a repair project for us to pass on to you.

Fluids and internals. Oil and coolant condition are checked, with a borescope where applicable. Contamination, emulsified coolant or metal in the oil ends the inspection: we walk away from the unit rather than clean it up and re-photograph it.

Complete and original. Main accessories fitted, nothing stripped, no as-is units. An incomplete engine is never bought on the theory that the missing parts can be found later — that theory is how a container ends up full of assemblies your counter cannot sell.

Serialized and documented. Every unit that passes gets an EC- serial, 8 to 12 photographs and a short video. That record follows the engine into your audit report, your packing list and your commercial invoice, which is what makes a specific engine in a specific container auditable months later.

The standardized test protocol: same six steps, same numbers, every unit

Four checks tell you what we look at; they do not yet tell you what counts as a pass. At 90 units in a 20 ft container and 130 in a 40 ft, the standard cannot live in an inspector's judgement — it has to live in numbers that two different inspectors would score the same way. So every engine goes through the same six steps, in the same order, against the same thresholds, and the results are written on a one-page test card that stays with the unit.

The protocol is deliberately basic. Leak-down testing and dyno runs exist in this trade, but at container volume they add days and cost that the buyer ends up paying, so they are reserved for escalation when a compression figure looks doubtful. What follows is the routine every unit gets, about twenty minutes per engine, filmed.

Who does the checking, and why it is not SGS

Our own team, on our own floor, and every test is filmed. We considered routing inspection through an independent house such as SGS, Bureau Veritas or Intertek and decided against it: on a 90 or 130 unit lot it adds weeks to the schedule and a cost per unit that lands on the buyer, for a report that says what our video already shows.

What replaces it is evidence rather than assurance. You receive the per-unit report, the photographs and the footage of the tests being run, and you approve or reject each engine on that basis before the balance is due. If you would rather have a third-party certificate than a filmed test, we would rather tell you that now than argue about it after a deposit.

What A, B, C and Core mean in the wider trade

The vocabulary is worth knowing even though we do not sell in it, because you will meet it in every other quotation you receive. Grade A generally means a tested, complete, running unit. Grade B means running with known faults or missing accessories. Grade C means unverified — often sold as-is, sight unseen. Core means the engine is sold as raw material for rebuilding, valued by weight and casting rather than by function.

There is a real market for every one of those tiers. A rebuilder with a machine shop buys Core deliberately and profitably. If that is your business, we are honestly not the cheapest source and you should buy from a yard that sells Core as a product rather than from one that rejects it. What matters is that you know which one you are buying — the losses in this trade come from a Core lot invoiced as Grade A, not from Core itself.

Sold as approved: your approval is the guarantee

ENGICOR does not offer a 30-day warranty, a 60-day warranty or a DOA window, and we would rather be plain about that than publish a guarantee that is quietly impossible to enforce across an ocean. What we offer instead is the right to reject before the container is sealed: every unit is tested, filmed and serialized, you approve each one, and any unit you reject is replaced free with another Grade A. The container ships only after your sign-off.

That is a deliberate trade. A warranty claim from Mombasa on an engine already fitted to a customer's car is a negotiation nobody wins. An evidence pack you reviewed before paying the balance is something you can act on while the engine is still in Guangzhou and still ours.

For what happens after loading, the honest answer is insurance rather than warranty. Transit damage is a marine cargo claim — yours under FOB, ours under CIF — and because every unit carries a serial that ties to a photo set and a packing list line, the claim has evidence behind it instead of an argument.

What arrives with every unit

A unique EC- serial stamped and recorded; 8 to 12 photographs taken before you paid; a short video of the unit; the per-unit audit report from the deep check; and a packing list line tied to that serial, matching the commercial invoice and the certificate of origin.

Every engine in the container matches a document you can audit, and every document matches an engine you approved. That is the whole standard: not a promise about quality, but a record you can check.

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