Repairing car by me: Making messy job even more messy

[CJay]

One of the 16 bent valves

Nasty, I had an 'S' shaped one somewhere that I found in the bottom of a gas analyser we bought (mechanics used to store all sorts of crap in the cabinets)

[Gromitt]

I'd take Ford any day over the current Chinese ownership. IMHO Volvo as a car company is pretty much dead.

Actually, Ford was more or less a disaster for Volvo Cars and everybody was happy when they left. Geely is expanding Volvo Cars and Volvo has never sold as many cars as they do now.

[PartialDischarge]

See where's my clutch, wahaha

Hmmm, just noticed at the back,. Do you fly in powered paragliding??

[rdl]

These "interference engines" seem like a very poor design to me. A relatively cheap, normal wear part can cause thousands of dollars damage when it fails? As if a light bulb failing could blow the roof off your house! Okay, not exactly but it still seems like there should be some kind of consumer information warning when selling a vehicle.

[james_s]

Interference engines have been very common for decades, practically all modern cars have them though about half use a timing chain that is less likely to fail than the belt. There are warnings and the information is clearly provided in the owners manual for the cars, the problem is that people don't bother to read the instructions. You have to change the oil regularly too, that information is also in the manual and most people know they need to do it. The belt driven interference engines seem to be more common in Japanese and European cars. Perhaps there's a cultural difference in terms of paying attention to the maintenance requirements. The timing belt is a routine maintenance item, you have it replaced at a regular interval of 50k-100k miles depending on the car.

[tonyjohn29]

Oh my god it's amazing whole engine is out! The body of the car seems to be new.

[nctnico]

Timing belts aren't too bad if the engine isn't sideways. I can replace the timing belt in my car in 30 minutes. I've actually done it on the side of the road once. What I don't like is the combination of timing belt + interference engine.

I hate those zero clearance motors...
Not a fan of timing belts in general...

It depends on how the valves are aligned with the pistons. On my previous car (diesel) the timing belt got messed up but because the valves where in line with the pistons only the bridge which drove the valves got broken. Easy repair once I found the broken bridge. My current car needs special tools and removing the engine head cover to replace the timing belt (every 160k km / 100k miles) so I bring it to a garage for that job but given the long interval I won't have it replaced again but just get rid of the car instead.

[calexanian]

Interference engine design is necessary to satisfy today's emission and efficiency standards. High compression for efficiency and smooth combustion chamber at high compression yields a cleaner burn and therefore less NOX and CO emissions. Sometimes they can get away from it in Turbo engines where the compression does not need to be as high, but those are the acception.

[med6753]

Interference engines have been very common for decades, practically all modern cars have them though about half use a timing chain that is less likely to fail than the belt. There are warnings and the information is clearly provided in the owners manual for the cars, the problem is that people don't bother to read the instructions. You have to change the oil regularly too, that information is also in the manual and most people know they need to do it. The belt driven interference engines seem to be more common in Japanese and European cars. Perhaps there's a cultural difference in terms of paying attention to the maintenance requirements. The timing belt is a routine maintenance item, you have it replaced at a regular interval of 50k-100k miles depending on the car.

Starting with the 8th generation Honda Civic in 2006 the 4 cylinder engine uses a timing chain. My other vehicle is a 2013 Honda CR-V and that 2.4 liter DOHC 4 cylinder engine also uses a timing chain. All Honda 4 cylinder engines sold in North America now use timing chains but I think the Honda V-6 engines are still using timing belts due to their greater complexity.