Car engine ruined

Mildly_Miffed

I've just seen the update to the OP.

2021 208HDi (so not a wet belt puretech petrol), 53k miles.

So that'll be the breakage-prone 7mm link chain between cams - upgraded to 8mm on more recent engines (early 2023 production, it seems). There's an upgrade kit available.

facade

Mildly_Miffed said:

I've just seen the update to the OP.

2021 208HDi (so not a wet belt puretech petrol), 53k miles.

So that'll be the breakage-prone 7mm link chain between cams - upgraded to 8mm on more recent engines (early 2023 production, it seems). There's an upgrade kit available.

At the risk of hijacking the thread, are there any modern engines that are actually any good?

What with wet belts, low friction piston rings, direct injection, the inability to get a simple chain running in a near perfect environment to work (I'm looking at you VW, BMW & Stellantis) there doesn't seem anything that isn't a ticking time-bomb just waiting to spring an engine replacement or astronomical repair bill on you.

Mildly_Miffed

It's all attempts to square the circle...

Legislative requirements for low emissions are one thing.

Then add on marketing demands for power AND fuel economy AND infrequent servicing for low first-owner running costs...

MattMattMattUK

The solution seems largely to go electric...

daveyjp

If you want reliability in a modern petrol engine avoiding turbos is a good start. It does reduce the choice hugely, but that in some way makes life easier as you will probably end up with a very reliable Japanese vehicle.

AlisonLow

The garage stripped the engine and said there was nothing wrong with the timing belt but when they tried to drain the oil it was "like treacle". They said that they could also see that the engine had been seriously damaged as a result and was ruined. The car did crank but would not start

lordmountararat

Electric cars have their own issues and are not suitable for everyone, but at least the motor and drive train is very simple and virtually maintenance free.

Mildly_Miffed

"Cam and crank sync" - there's a belt from crank to one cam, then a chain between the two cams. It's that chain that gives problems.

"No oil" or "oil but like treacle"? I can't think of any way oil is going to go "like treacle" without some kind of contamination, or far FAR too long between services. And the light flagged oil degradation... but the garage didn't change it? Despite it being due in 500 miles?

But we've also got an error for communication to the engine management, two wheel speed sensors, and the ABS/ESP ecu. So are those codes the usual spurious randoms from low voltage?

We're playing chinese whispers, unfortunately, and guessing.
You say the local garage have been servicing it, not a main dealer? So forget any out-of-warranty goodwill from Stellantis UK.

paul_c123

Cam/crank correlation is a fairly definite sign that either the belt has jumped a tooth, or there is some other serious issue (such as a loose pulley, or a failed guide or tensioner). I'd be wanting more solid reassurance than "there's nothing wrong with the timing belt" from them. It might be they didn't know what they're doing, and stripped it before checking if it had gone out of time and proceeding much more intuitively, rather than just banging on with it and getting the engine into as many pieces as possible.

Its a diesel - all diesel oil, even after about 5 minutes in the engine, looks black. If its all "like treacle" then maybe there's an issue but I'd once again, be doubting this garage's words and diagnosis.

If they've found serious damage, I'd say they've found trauma from valves contacting pistons (due to the timing) or severe wear on a bearing surface from low oil pressure. I guess it doesn't actually matter, you're basically screwed at this point.

If its wear from low pressure, I'd be tempted to replace the whole engine. If its impact damage of the valves/pistons, a top end rebuild is a slightly cheaper option than a whole new engine but you would need to be sure the pistons are okay.

Goudy

Mildly_Miffed said:

"No oil" or "oil but like treacle"? I can't think of any way oil is going to go "like treacle" without some kind of contamination, or far FAR too long between services. And the light flagged oil degradation... but the garage didn't change it? Despite it being due in 500 miles?

If the oil control rings fail, you'll use engine oil and it'll also dump a lot of soot in the engine oil, turning it to a thick black mess.
It's a diesel, some soot normally passes the rings at start up and cold running due to the high compression ratio and the internals haven't yet expanded with heat. Which is why new, clean oil in a diesel engine turns black the instant you start the engine.

I believe they fitted low friction piston rings in this engine and they have been known to fail due to clogging with soot and burnt oil.

I've seen this before when the vegetable oil crazy was at it's peak.
Gummed up and clogged rings causes excess oil usage and the engine producing more soot (as it's now way out with it's fuel/air ratio as burning fuel and engine oil) and a lot of soot gets dumped in the engine as it passes the ever increasingly clogged rings. Soot is just fuel that hasn't completely burned to ash.

Reading between the lines, the oil light/EML came on and local garage probably topped it up and turned the EML off, thinking all's good now, without realising it's using oil because of an engine fault.
Whatever oil was in it was a thick mess of soot and can't circulate properly and the engine has gone bang soon after.

I would have at least checked the oil filler cap with a problem like this by running a diesel engine up with the oil filter cap off and checking what is coming out of the hole.
It's there's lots of pressure from combustion coming out of the oil filler hole, there's a serious engine problem.

The reported timing out of sync is likely due to the engine dying on the move.
The onboard diagnostics has detected the engine running at an advanced cam angle to a dead stop in an instant and worked out something isn't right or it could have been backing the cam timing off if it tripped into limp before going bang.