Legal rights on faulty timing chains?

Westmead_Fan

has the vehicle been maintained properly like correct oil been used during changes & how often, these will indicate if Toyota will play ball & also if that could be one of the causes for a chain problem

bigjl

I would advise you get it checked by a proper Toyota garage.

Rather than an independant garage who might not have correct diagnostics.

Toyota have had a fall from grace recently as far as being bomb proof goes.

But they do also seem to be much better than most for getting problems fixed that are their fault.

arcon5

Is servicing relevant here? Servicing usually consisting of all filters and oil and visual inspections - timing chains aren't visually inspected during services and certainly not submerged in oil or anything daft so not sure how the oldest of oils could be relevant.......


Happy to be corrected....

colino

It is far from unknown for single row timing chains, even in Toyotas, to give up the ghost early. I'm sure you'll find cases if you google for them but even if a good will contribution is made on a TFSH car, percentage of what? Unlikely the manufacturer will ever be out of pocket when the headline consumer price is the baseline for their kind intervention.
Timing chains were all but abandoned when modern cars with more efficient and closer tolerance timing came to the fore. Timing belts were the answer with Ford for example, pre-launch of the Zetec, saying they were "for life" units, then amending that to 100,000 miles/10 years. People will no doubt run past those arbitrary figures with aplomb, others will have the upsetting noise followed by a car that spins overfast on the starter with the belt in shreds.
Improvements in manufacture resuscitated chains, though the Jaguar, Toyota, Vauxhall owners might wonder why.
Either way, belts or chains, the servicing will be questioned cleanliness of oil inspected and tensioners and timing gears closely examined.
In the OPs case, like many others, the chain really wont have stretched very much, but the timing gears will have started to wear and the timing will be drifting and logged as a fault on the ecu.
Spend £500 on stripping down a 6 year old Yaris? Not a chance, the extra wear will be alleged to be poor servicing and/or overheating and the ball passed back to the owner.
Either get handy with the spanners or wait until you actually hear the timing chain rattle and get it done then.

Mankysteve

Iceweasel wrote: »

With a complete Toyota service history you should get some goodwill out of them. Toyota are known for treating their customers better than most.

Yes - chains should last the life of the engine.

Try a google search for BMW N47 chain problem to see what their response is to a similar problem on their most popular engine fitted to over 30 different models across their range.

Good luck.

No they dont last the life of the engine hence why they recommend changing them at 80k or 8years, I would like a bit more than 80k out of modern non profromance engine.

Usually chains don't wear out its the tensioner that worn out allowing it to go loose, but you as you change both as there's no point at getting to tensioner without doing the chain as well.

Mankysteve

arcon5 wrote: »

Is servicing relevant here? Servicing usually consisting of all filters and oil and visual inspections - timing chains aren't visually inspected during services and certainly not submerged in oil or anything daft so not sure how the oldest of oils could be relevant.......


Happy to be corrected....

They have a supply of oil, how much varies upon the engine design but they do get oiled.

mb101_2

Mankysteve wrote: »

No they dont last the life of the engine hence why they recommend changing them at 80k or 8years, I would like a bit more than 80k out of modern non profromance engine.

Usually chains don't wear out its the tensioner that worn out allowing it to go loose, but you as you change both as there's no point at getting to tensioner without doing the chain as well.

I've specifically registered because I am annoyed by having seen you repeatedly give incorrect information in this thread. Timing chains last the life of the engine, or should do. This is fact and quite easily verified from a myriad sources including Toyota themselves.

But, as the chap above points out, on an old car they won't necessarily pay out for a failure even if it is premature and they would take things like maintenance into account.

bigjl

colino wrote: »

It is far from unknown for single row timing chains, even in Toyotas, to give up the ghost early. I'm sure you'll find cases if you google for them but even if a good will contribution is made on a TFSH car, percentage of what? Unlikely the manufacturer will ever be out of pocket when the headline consumer price is the baseline for their kind intervention.
Timing chains were all but abandoned when modern cars with more efficient and closer tolerance timing came to the fore. Timing belts were the answer with Ford for example, pre-launch of the Zetec, saying they were "for life" units, then amending that to 100,000 miles/10 years. People will no doubt run past those arbitrary figures with aplomb, others will have the upsetting noise followed by a car that spins overfast on the starter with the belt in shreds.
Improvements in manufacture resuscitated chains, though the Jaguar, Toyota, Vauxhall owners might wonder why.
Either way, belts or chains, the servicing will be questioned cleanliness of oil inspected and tensioners and timing gears closely examined.
In the OPs case, like many others, the chain really wont have stretched very much, but the timing gears will have started to wear and the timing will be drifting and logged as a fault on the ecu.
Spend £500 on stripping down a 6 year old Yaris? Not a chance, the extra wear will be alleged to be poor servicing and/or overheating and the ball passed back to the owner.
Either get handy with the spanners or wait until you actually hear the timing chain rattle and get it done then.

It was always my understanding that the change to belts from chains was due to less noise and engines with belts were cheaper to produce.

But a timing chain does not always last the life of the engine.

Especially the cheaper simplex chains.

My Pathfinder is on nearly 120k with its first simplex chain. But there are several specialists that do a duplex conversion.

Mankysteve

mb101 wrote: »

I've specifically registered because I am annoyed by having seen you repeatedly give incorrect information in this thread. Timing chains last the life of the engine, or should do. This is fact and quite easily verified from a myriad sources including Toyota themselves.

But, as the chap above points out, on an old car they won't necessarily pay out for a failure even if it is premature and they would take things like maintenance into account.

I'm not going to get into a flame war but the fact that in this Toyota recomends 80k or 8 years which comes first tell you otherwise:rotfl:. If it was menat to last the life of the engine it wouldn't have a change recommendation. Any modern car engine that cant do 80k or 8 years s not worth touching.

But as others have including myself the op needs to get touch with Toyota they should have a pretty good case if they've got full service history.

colino

While noise and ease of servicing were very valid reasons for the switch, belts were introduced for "precision timing", I even remember the kit to upgrade and "race tune" the A Series engines!
Nowadays things are getting strangely confused. The new Ford EcoBoost engine has the timing belt inside the engine (so there goes the easy change) and it runs in oil - contradicting what we've always known kills flexi-belts!