[V8] timing belt and other horror stories

[Roger M. Woodbury]

I have never had a timing belt failure. My daughter's Acura Integra broke a
timing belt not long after I had installed her in her first job and
apartment in Florida.  She was out of college and starting to make some good
money, but was so frugal that she disobeyed Daddy and did NOT have the
timing belt done when I told her to.  Broke it but with no damage...funny: I
could have sworn that four cam engine was an impact design....
 
The other horror story happened after I sold my first Porsche 928.  That was
a perfect car.  It was bought initially by an orthodontist from northeastern
Massachusetts who only drove it on nice Sundays when he went to see his
elderly grandmother. At least I think it probably was like that.  The car
had 36,000 miles on it when I bought it from a used car dealer.  The
orthodontist had just had a major service done on the car...he was pretty
anal about it, and the Porsche dealer told me about the car and which snobby
foreign used car guy had it.  Anyway, the orthodontist was driving the car
home from the Porsche dealer.  He passed the Mercedes dealer on the way and
saw sitting outside on the lawn a new Mercedes 500SL.  He did a Uie an
stopped to look at the Mercedes. Since he had a little more than 100K too
much in his checkbook, he traded the car.( I hate it when that happens:  too
much money in the checkbook is sooooooo depressing!).
 
Anyway, I drove that car happily.  It was nine years old when I bought it,
and basically the car needed nothing except for oil services.  On the way
back from Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania one year, that big old RED
EXCLAMATION POINT and the other BIG RED light on the dash came on with the
timing belt ikon on the face of the instrument cluster lighted in BRIGHT
yellow.  The car had 59,855 miles on it at that moment, and the appointment
for the timing belt service had been made before the trip.  Man!  When that
GREAT BIG RED EXCLAIMATION POINT light comes on at o-dark-thirty after a
seven hundred mile trip, it can really wake you up much, much better than a
double dose of Nodoz.
 
I loved that car.  Great power, great comfort, great performance and pretty
good fuel mileage, so long you are not doing heavy stop and go stuff.
 
Driving to Portland one day for business, I stopped to get fuel.  After
restarting, I noticed an odd little vibration in the driveline. The
vibration came on precisely at eighteen hundred rpm, and went away at
exactly 2400 rpm.  
 
I immediately took the car to my wrench.  He found a vacuum line that was
routed beneath the intake manifold.  The car had been sitting all summer in
its garage, and when the intake manifold was pulled, a big old mouse nest
was cleaned out.  The vacuum line cost about six dollars to replace and the
cost to r and r the manifold and all the assorted plumbing a bit more than
$450....labor.  I decided that since I was driving the truck every day and
the Porsche was getting insufficient love and driving, it was time to sell
it.  
 
I sold the car pretty quickly.  In fact I left the car with my mechanic in
Bangor to be sold.  When the guy who bought it came to Bangor to pick up the
car, I was there, armed with my thick folder of previous and my service
records. The car had a fresh oil change done when the vacuum lead was fixed.
The car was PERFECT, but I told the guy who bought it the battery was in
need of replacement and would probably NOT last the winter.  I also told him
that although it was a PITA ALWAY bring the car back to Bangor for service.
The reason was that Steve was at that time the ONLY 928 type-trained Porsche
master tech north of Boston.  Steve had been a Porsche tech in Tampa when
the S4 was first introduced and was schooled in the car at the training
school which was in Atlanta at the time.  
 
As far as we could find out, the first thing that the guy did when he got
back to whichever town in the southern part of the state he lived in, was to
take the car to Jiffylube or one of those.  Not long after that, he took the
car to EVERY mechanic who even knew that Porsche made cars in the general
Portland area.  
Monkey Lad after Monkey Lad "did" that Porsche.  Eventually it came back to
Bangor on a flat bed, the engine toast.  There were five quarts of oil in
the sump, the crank had crept into the block.
 
The final diagnosis was that the car had suffered catastrophic thrust
bearing failure which is a relatively common ailment on the late 928S and S4
and later 928's.  What can happen is the tension on the thrust bearing can
alter under some circumstances and the drive shaft can push forward.  I
personally believe this is caused by the much higher incidence of stop and
go driving in the US than these cars were ever designed to encounter.  There
is an enthusiast developed maintenance procedure that can be done at oil
changes...takes half an hour or so...and the failure can be prevented.  My
mechanic and I feel that the engine damage was most caused by oil
starvation...five quarts of oil lives in the heads of the 928S4!  One way or
the other, improper maintenance caused a complete engine failure in an
otherwise near-pristine S4.
 
I know this is not a V8 timing belt story, but from my experience I believe
that there are two factors that are imperative in maintaining one of these
cars.  First of all, a very strict maintenance schedule regarding oil and
filter changes is mandatory. Secondly, in wear items that could be
catastrophic, the timing belt is number one, and although Audi reduced the
interval to 60,000 from the initial 90,000 miles in the first 3.6 litre
series, there is nothing wrong with examining the timing belt at 50,000
miles first. It is not a big deal to pull the covers and look.  Thirdly, at
five years if the belt hasn't been changed regardless of miles, why not just
change it then?  Five years or fifty thousand miles, with an inspection
mandatory at 50K would probably eliminate timing belt failures on these
cars, doncha think?
 
On another subject, I just watched an Audi auction on eBay. The subject car
was a 2000 A6 Avant that had 82,000 miles. The car appeared to be perfect,
and did not bring 4500 in the auction.  Now with more than 170,000 miles on
the 100CS, it makes me wonder if I should look more for a newer car, since
the planned maintenance needed in ten thousand miles, plus the body work we
want to have done to spruce the car up, would end up being more than the
reserve on that A6.....on the other hand, the 100 runs nearly without flaw
or error.....worth more to me than anyone else at this point.
 
Roger