5 ms·

This was a fun read and I can relate, I own a Toyota with over 300k km's on the clock. At 160k the timing belt snapped and bent the valves. Luckily I could affo

This was a fun read and I can relate, I own a Toyota with over 300k km's on the clock. At 160k the timing belt snapped and bent the valves. Luckily I could afford to take a week off, buy a second hand imported enjin, have a dad who is a mechanical engineer, and learn swap the enjin myself. Then take a second week off work because the new enjin had timing issues which I finally pinpointed to a pirated camshaft pulley where the outer ring of the part would slip. Long story short, my car, even with all the troubles is by far cheaper than any other option, but just like the article states, you have to have certain "privileges" to make it work.

zo1 12y ago
Could the timing belt issue have been avoided if it was replaced? Or would you say it was something else that caused it to break, and would have happened regardless?
- eosrei 12y ago
  Timing belts are 100-120k mile maintenance parts depending on the vehicle. Expect bent valves if you don't replace them at the recommended interval. My car is on it's third.
  - zo1 12y ago
    So if you were to replace them at the 80% mark of those miles... Then you should be very unlikely to have them snap on you unexpectedly?
    - kabouseng 12y ago
      No it doesn't work like that, statistics etc. As with any fixed interval maintenance part there is some chance that the part can fail before being serviced. As per my example, the timing belt was replaced at 100k, so the new belt failed at 60k, just bad luck. Fixed interval maintenance is used for parts with a tight normal distribution when failure occurs and where you can't predict the failure before hand, or it is difficult to measure / predict. Timing belts fits this use case.
ryandrake 12y ago
For the last 15 or so years, until about a month ago, my daily driver was a 1986 sports car. There's no way I would have been able to do that if I couldn't do most of the maintenance myself or had a job where I'd be fired if I couldn't get to the office on time once in a while. Having AAA helps too, for tows.
tdkl 12y ago
The timing belt is supposed to be replaced with service at 120k.
- kabouseng 12y ago
  It was, it was the second belt that snapped.
michaelbuddy 12y ago
that seems very expensive if you weren't getting paid for the off-work days. I've never heard of a car repair costing me the equivalent of 2 weeks off work. I take it you also enjoyed some of those days so it wasn't completely sunk into working on timing issues, that's not what I would do.
- kabouseng 12y ago
  I'm not so sure, the quotes I got to redo the head was about the same as about one week of pay for me. Remember this was when I was just out of college, employed for less than a year. Today I would pay someone to fix it for me. So yes I lost about a weeks pay due to unforseen circumstances, but probably the shop would have suffered the same troubles, raising the cost, and I got to learn quite a lot about enjins etc.
j-b 12y ago
"Cheaper" is relative. Perhaps two weeks off could be spent on traveling or exploring nature. Instead you spent that time working on a car.
- kabouseng 12y ago
  Perhaps, but I don't consider that time a loss. Rather I got some very good practice on my mechanical skills which is re-used in other areas like another poster here mentioning house maintenance etc.

zo1 12y ago

Could the timing belt issue have been avoided if it was replaced? Or would you say it was something else that caused it to break, and would have happened regardless?

eosrei 12y ago
Timing belts are 100-120k mile maintenance parts depending on the vehicle. Expect bent valves if you don't replace them at the recommended interval. My car is on it's third.
- zo1 12y ago
  So if you were to replace them at the 80% mark of those miles... Then you should be very unlikely to have them snap on you unexpectedly?
  - kabouseng 12y ago
    No it doesn't work like that, statistics etc. As with any fixed interval maintenance part there is some chance that the part can fail before being serviced. As per my example, the timing belt was replaced at 100k, so the new belt failed at 60k, just bad luck. Fixed interval maintenance is used for parts with a tight normal distribution when failure occurs and where you can't predict the failure before hand, or it is difficult to measure / predict. Timing belts fits this use case.

ryandrake 12y ago

For the last 15 or so years, until about a month ago, my daily driver was a 1986 sports car. There's no way I would have been able to do that if I couldn't do most of the maintenance myself or had a job where I'd be fired if I couldn't get to the office on time once in a while. Having AAA helps too, for tows.

tdkl 12y ago

The timing belt is supposed to be replaced with service at 120k.

kabouseng 12y ago
It was, it was the second belt that snapped.

michaelbuddy 12y ago

that seems very expensive if you weren't getting paid for the off-work days. I've never heard of a car repair costing me the equivalent of 2 weeks off work. I take it you also enjoyed some of those days so it wasn't completely sunk into working on timing issues, that's not what I would do.

kabouseng 12y ago
I'm not so sure, the quotes I got to redo the head was about the same as about one week of pay for me. Remember this was when I was just out of college, employed for less than a year. Today I would pay someone to fix it for me. So yes I lost about a weeks pay due to unforseen circumstances, but probably the shop would have suffered the same troubles, raising the cost, and I got to learn quite a lot about enjins etc.

j-b 12y ago

"Cheaper" is relative. Perhaps two weeks off could be spent on traveling or exploring nature. Instead you spent that time working on a car.

kabouseng 12y ago
Perhaps, but I don't consider that time a loss. Rather I got some very good practice on my mechanical skills which is re-used in other areas like another poster here mentioning house maintenance etc.