(full disclosure: This is marty's latest dream bike)
Posted on 02/09/2015 6:05:02 AM PST by rickmichaels
This car only had around 40,000 miles, still within warranty.
Something’s being left out of the story.
Entry level luxury cars are cheaper to buy, not cheaper to maintain.
That list is of engines with timing belts, not chains.
Mt Grand daughters older Jetta did this .
A failed vacuum pump caused the timing chain to snap? Can somebody explain that to me?
What’s a vacuum pump on an engine? I thought they all tapped the vacuum in the intake manifold.
I recall seeing vacuum “motors” that drove windshield wipers eons ago.
The Brits are outstanding people but I think it was firmly established decades ago that they didn’t know how to build automobiles.
The TDI engine will eat valves if the timing belt breaks. I had a 1990 GTI 16V that did it, but that was after I sold it to a co-worker who I warned about this tendency, but he was one of those drive it until it breaks types.
I replaced the belt every 35K miles.
My solution after my last VW is that I’ll never buy another European car.
+1
This vacuum pump is driven by the chain. It seized up and damaged the chain, and that threw off the valve timing.
Always made me smile as the Honda Civic I just bought years ago was getting better gas mileage than what the Mini Cooper was advertising theirs would do at the time.
HOw much is that? I have a TDI with 35K on it
The interior features control knobs that appear to have been designed by Fisher-Price. That's almost as offensive as the previous-generation Beetle's bud vase.
Haven’t had the car since 2000, so I don’t remember.
I had to go look up what that was. I found a question from a guy who had bought a VW without a bud vase, and one of the funniest answers was a fellow who told him that he had purchased a defective VW. He told him the Bud Vase is integral to achieving the correct compression pressures in the pistons, and that operating the vehicle without the bud vase was not only fatally dangerous, but voided the warranty.
Sounds like something I would write.
What I don’t understand is why she needs a new engine if she only has bent valves. Get the head fixed, check the engine bores for damage and put it back together. Easy to do and doesn’t break the bank.
Now, if she dropped a valve or valve seat or both, then the block or at least the piston it happened on is history.
She might want to throw on a new timing chain, guides and tensioners as well.
There are a substantial number of overhead engines that
are non-interference. The four cylinder Toyota Camry and
many of the other Toyota/Lexus engines are non-interference.
I understand that the interference engines were designed that way in order to get more power and increased efficiency.
Honda switched to a chain, probably from many complaints from owners that failed to change the belt when required.
As long as the belts are changed at proper intervals, it
doesn’t really matter if the engine is interference or not.
And timing chains will stretch over time and their replacement is a lot more work than a belt.
Yeah, there is that, of course.
Please accept my abject apology for the suggestion!
(full disclosure: This is marty's latest dream bike)
The author wrote “vacuum pump” but later wrote “water pump”. I expect “vacuum pump” was a typo. I don’t know of any “vacuum pumps” driven by timing chains.
Brian Williams owns this bike.
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