motor

Skaala · 02-18-2006, 05:46 PM

My mom had her Seat Alahambra 1,9TDi 115hp (148hp chip) in for a service a couple a weeks ago. They where to change the timing chain/camshaft belt, and changine the oil filter, oil, etc. Main thing was the chain. After my dad picked it up, he noticed a ticking sound from the engine, sounding like problems with the valves. So he calles the garage, and they assured him this was normal right after a change. He thought this was wierd and all though he has a lot of technical competence he called me, and my uncle discussing this.

Laster the next day, my dad,mom and granmother was driving for our cabin, and in the middle of nowhere on the haukeli mountains the engine suddenly lost all power, and the engine completely went out with a bang. This was in -25 degrees celcius and they had to wait for 2 hrs for a tow truck and rental car.

Back home the repair shop said that, well actually to cut it short they said "shit happens" The top was completely broken, the valves and hydraulic lifters were smashed flat, the cam was broken, and 2 cylinders had to be changed. Meaning big $$. They also completely rejected that their mechanic could have for example set the timing chain wrong. (barely accepting they were notified of the wierd ticking sound)

We got hold of all the broken parts and sendt them in for analasys, hoping they could tell us what happened. So far they could not 100% say what was wrong. Only thing that is certain is that the car was purring like a cat when it was delivered at the shop and blew up shortly after service...

The engine is a 1999mod at 160.000km

Any thoughts on what might have caused it?

ZfrkS62 · 02-19-2006, 01:45 AM

depending on the procedure for replacing the timing chain, they may not have tightened the cam sprocket correctly. That could cause the cam to break which would have kept the valves jammed open. When the pistons came up, they collided with the open valves, bending them and possbly jamming them back up.

I don't know anything about the engine in question, though i think VWs engines all have the chains on the back of the engine, no? If so then i believe it is a mechanical tensioner that could have been set incorrectly.

Either way, the shop is going to have a difficult time proving it's not their fault.

Skaala · 02-19-2006, 05:06 PM

Before we installed the chip we did a full internal cleaning of the fuel nozzles, as this is recommended if the engine have past 100.000km's. We installed the chip at 90.000 I think, and it has run perfect since. Fuel consumption went down, torqe rocketed and combined with a K&N filter it went up to 143whp. It was actually quite fun to drive, it also passed 225km/h on the autobahn with a skibox on the roof.

jakaracman · 02-19-2006, 07:12 PM

Basically: who cares what was wrong. Get a lawyjer, put it in papers and force trhem to fix it or put in a new engine.

Wutputt · 02-20-2006, 02:52 PM

Well since the problems only started right after the timing belt change, the changes are pretty high it's caused by a bad timing of the camshaft.

About the chiptuning. That 1.9 TDI engine has the PD, which are also driven by the camshaft. This adds an extra strain on the belt. On top of that the belt has to deal with the added torque of the chiptuning. Such things don't help reliability, but you can't blame it for the cause of the blown engine, it only may have helped the scale of the damage.