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But your point about the Interstate is a good one, and if I had a commute I would have fixed the belt per the 105k recommendation. I knew the engine was non-interference and the only wrinkle fixing it was having to go back to the shop when my mechanic got the belt a tooth off.
I coached my wife about what to expect if the belt broke while she was driving and spent the $5 a year for towing insurance. When the belt did break, I knew immediately what happened. We were in a good spot for the breakdown, although it was a bit chilly.
It freeways in So. California have eliminated the "breakdown" lanes on the right and converted them to full traffic lanes. If a person were to have engine failure, it could be a dangerous event.
Back to risk taking, I sleep well at night with no life insurance or extended warranty coverage on my cars, and I've been known to eat salads in Mexico, lol.
(yeah, I know the emotorcons are broken but I figure they'll be fixed one day and the smiley will show up. Be prepared.)
I had a timing belt break on my Buick in a good spot. I had just slowed for a stoplight on the highway and was making a right turn. I rolled to a stop on the berm just away from the corner.
I didn't realize the belt had given symptoms a couple times earlier with slight misses as it was skipped a cog or something. No more timing belts for me. (famous last words.)
50,000 miles was recommended change point. Failed me at 49,000.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
A lot of cars used to use a nylon timing gear. These could and often would fail suddenly and often, engine damage would be the result.
Pontiacs were REALLY good that this happening but it wasn't limited to them.
Yea forums work really great since they fixed them. (sarc)
Timing belts have some advantages over chains when it comes to designing an engine. You can find one of those advantages with Fords 3.7l Ecoboost as compared to GM's engines simply by looking at the engine oil specification. By using a belt Ford can concentrate on other engine needs and not have to be as strict as GM's dexos1 has to be. GM's are running timing chains and that's one of the reasons that the dexos1 spec is so important, search GM timing chain stretch or failure complaints and you'll find a whole lot of people who failed to use an oil that really met GM's specification.
I've diagnosed four timing chain failures (two Nissans, one Honda and one Acura) in the last two months and didn't get to fix any of them. They all estimated in the $1500 - $2000 range and two of them also required machine shop charges for what ever damage was done to the head and valves on top of that.
If you check your car again, you should watch the current draw for several minutes to see if it also steps down in power consumption after shutdown.
Also, on newer cars with their complicated electronics, adding aftermarket alarms, remote start, and audio are asking for dead battery problems.
Think about how you would approach this car and begin your diagnostics. The answer and findings will be in separate posts in my blog.
http://johng673.blogspot.com/
We see cars that take twenty minutes before they truly reach low power status and disturbing them in any fashion can cause the whole routine to reset. Testing is typically done with a low amps current probe and an oscilloscope to measure the current drain and then we use a DVOM (digital volt/ohm meter) that measures into the micro-volt (1/1,000,000v) range to measure the voltage drops across the fuses. In years past we would simply pull fuses and find out which circuit was drawing power but today that can have unintended consequences and cause additional drains when we wake modules up by pulling and reinstalling a fuse or even allow a module that was falsely powering a circuit to depower it on us and then we lose our chance to find the problem until the next time that it acts up.
For the really tough ones I have three low amps probes that can be put to use and I can leap-frog them as I follow the current flow through the vehicle to the source of the problem. I do roughly the same routine with the current probes to find the cause of a failure that results in a blown fuse.
I don't mind timing belts so much but don't like interference engines. Even newer belts within their rated lifespan can break with expensive consequences.
I thought that would get someone's ear. It was a 1985 Skyhawk with the special 1.8 L engine. The 2.0 L was standard. But the equivalent of Edmund's groupies here at that time said the 1.8 L was much peppier. So I followed the advice of the on-paper folk then as I would the on-line folk's advice today.
I think the belt was loose from the beginning. I don't recall if the replacement was 50,000 mi or it was to be checked at the 50,000 mi checkup.
Towed home. Replaced it myself at home with a loaner wrench for the project from my service manager at the dealer (crowsfoot wrench). Service manager had earned a customer for life with that gesture. Do you get that kind of help from your dealer today?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/1987_Buick_SkyHawk_Cust- om.jpg/320px-1987_Buick_SkyHawk_Custom.jpg
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
We had a campaign on that timing belt and replaced dozens under warranty. It paid .6 hours.
I ended up selling that 11' cab-over Banner camper, which was built for it in 1969, about six years ago. I wanted to keep it just for the originality of it all, but it had structural issues that prevented it from being used on the road. It still stayed nice and dry on the inside, though, so we used it as staging quarters while we built our house (lived in it for about seven months). I sold it to a friend who did the same, and I've heard it has made a few rounds of serving such duty, so it's probably just about used up by now; especially considering that I was the only owner that actually had any real investment in it (emotional or otherwise!).
Thanks for all the discussion on batteries; again, very informative stuff!
That wouldn't have done me any good, back in 1983 I was making about $7.25/hr. There was no way I could spend $70. on a share of something let alone $700....
You got to see it to believe it. BTW it does not meet the requirements for the new R2R Massachusettes law.
Tire kicked a used Porsche 914 back in '76 or so. Sometimes you do dodge bullets.
First, it never gets paid off, the yearly updates are $7500. But if they did buy it, $23,000 plus the sales tax is $24380. If it is financed the rate will likely be 9.9% for three years, so the payments would be about $785. a month. The problem is that there will be many things that they can do with aftermarket tools, so the O.E. tool only fills the gap between what the aftermarket tools are capable of and what the shop ultimately needs. With Mercedes that's likely 30%-40%. Figuring two diagnostics a day per tech, (four bays would mean two techs) 22 days a month that would be eighty eight diagnostic routines. If we go on the high side at 40% that would be 35 a month that the Mercedes tool is required. That means the first $22.50 of the diagnostic fee goes straight towards supporting the tool.
So if the average diagnostic fee in the area is $100, they would have to be closer to $125. So what do you think would happen when consumers call around and ask about price first?
I thought hand tools were expensive!
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
BTW the present system lasted about six years and is being replaced by this one. That routine is expected to continue so the price for six years is really something like,,,,
$24380 initial, plus five yearly updates at $7500+tx which is $7950. Assuming it runs six years before it is replaced the cost is $64130.
http://johng673.blogspot.com/
I put up the final response to that repair.
Reminds me of the story I heard about a call to a PC help desk. Caller said he/she couldn't see anything on the monitor. No matter what he did, nothing showed up. The tech patiently walked the customer through the standard troubleshooting steps, until they got to the point when the tech wanted the customer to reset the PC. Cutomer replied "well, I can't see the reset button". "Why", the tech asked. "Because all the lights are off because we lost electricity", replied the cutomer! Duhhh!
Yep, who ever does stuff to her car at home grabbed that key and started all of the craziness. They spent three days doing all kinds of things to the car before they finally had it towed it in.
My wife and son know that driving a BMW with the needle in the red zone is THE Unpardonable Sin, so when the expansion tank let go on his X3 my son immediately switched it off and coasted into a parking lot.
Meanwhile, the shop owner is on the phone with an owner of a Ford V6 trying to explain that it is false economy to replace only one head gasket. Reminds me of the idiot at my BMW indie who asked it the shop could just change the pads on ONE wheel...
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Her reaction was relief and she appreciated the fact that now all three keys work. She had no idea that the car could be trained to accept the key so easily.
As far as crazy stuff, I have thousands of cases of crazy stuff that I can put out here. We have to be on our game 100% of the time or a diagnostic routine can lead down some dark rabbit holes in a hurry.
I would think her to be rather grateful to you for your excellent diagnostic skills
Our fee to diagnose the problem and program her key was our minimum 1/2 an hours time at our diagnostic rate. So this was all done for under $70. The kicker was when she told me that she then had to take the car back to the DIY'er guy to have him do her brakes now that it was running again, the same guy that when given the wrong key couldn't figure out why the car wouldn't start.
Mouse feces in lube system causes engine damage - is this really possible?
It is kind of funny though for anyone to suggest that if rodent droppings have really been discovered that they could have made it through the filter intact and remain recognizable. If this really did happen it would be far more likely that the filter contained contamination before it was installed onto the engine. The question from there is if it occurred that way was it an accidental introduction or was it sabotage?
One point that I find suspicious is that very few shops even touch a short block anymore. If an engine comes in damaged, they simply replace it without tearing anything apart. The tech doesn't get paid enough to do the job, let alone spend sixty seconds looking around to try and figure out why it happened.
Not anymore. Valve jobs are a thing of the past for the most part anyway.
Sure, but not the way that I learned to do them back in the 70's. When we prove that a cylinder has lost compression and its a valve leak the head gets pulled and sent to a machine shop that specializes in cylinder head reconditioning. I still have valve resurface equipment and use it for small engines and I can still do older cast iron heads when its appropriate but its outclassed for the stuff that I see on a daily basis.
Maybe the owner is at fault if he does the work himself. As I have pointed out in responding to that question imagining the debris getting introduced to the engine and making it past the filter (and the pick up screen, and the pump etc)is quite a stretch, however suspecting that it was in the filter before it was installed on the engine is quite plausible.
The part no-one else ever considers is if this is repaired under warranty the tech doing the work loses money on the deal, if this was genuinely the vehicle owners fault, then that wouldn't be fair for the tech. People want to do work themselves, and they get convinced that its "so easy" they in turn fail to understand and accept all of the risks. Its an expensive lesson to learn but if nothing else changes in the facts as presented and he does service the car himself then this should now be between him and his filter source, not him and GM. JMHO.
I don't think consumers care - if the tech is working for nothing the tech needs to do something about it. Trying to get me, the customer, to care enough to complain to the dealer or manufacturer is going to be a waste of energy.
Fine, I'm educated now and know that techs get screwed over by dealers. Big whoop, I have my own stuff to deal with. So it's not my problem - my problem is getting my car fixed right the first time without having to take out a second mortgage. Anything else is background noise to the consumer.
They don't care, nor should they really.
They may start to care down the road as tech leave the business and their replacements aren't there to take their places.
Nobody cares until they are personally affected.
With the strong franchise laws in every state, it doesn't seem like it'd be too hard for a bigger dealer group just to sue GM or Ford or whoever for requiring unrealistic warranty payment rates. They'd have the sales numbers and state laws to wield a bit of clout, and the manufacture would be cutting their own sales numbers if they started playing games with allocations.
Wonder where NADA is in this debate?
I can't imagine what their labor rates must be!