Yeah, I needed this problem this week.
I’ve learned through the years, to take care of my vehicles. The van has been running smooth and my computer just popped up a reminder that it is coming due for an oil change soon. I’ve been real good to the van. Tuesday on the way home, it stalled in traffic and refused to start. There were no warnings at all, it just died.
I called Rocky and he said he’d look at it tomorrow. I had it towed over and took the Rodeo into work. At least it worked out that I’m working the midnight shift that night.
Rocky called and said it was the timing belt. $536 to replace it (including the towing charge) BUT, there may be further damage. Actually the word he used was that there SHOULD be further damage. I guess when a timing belt breaks, the pistons/valves just all hang out together and bang heads. Kind of like being at one of my parties. It will probably end up being a $1800 job if it happened.
I picked up the van and we talked a little about cars and stuff, he’s a friend of the family type guy. He said I was pretty lucky. He told me about a guy with a the same engine and said “the worst thing you could have done was try to start it up again. As soon as you do that, it’s all over, everything inside gets bent”. He looked at me funny because I kind of stayed silent and smiled sheepishly. I tried to start that thing probably 30 times after it died. I thought there was some gas/air/spark problem. I didn’t know. Everyone it the shop is calling me wonderboy now. They are amazed that I got away with it. No damage to the engine at all. I have an “interference” engine and it’s extremely rare to see it so clean after a timing belt snap, especially since I kept trying to turn it over.
So, not that I could really afford the $536, I’m happy that it didn’t cost me more and I’m happy that this wasn’t due to my neglect. Yeah, I know NOW that you are supposed to change the timing belt every 60,000 miles but I didn’t know that then!
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