Honda Civic - Broken Timing Belt

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Highland, NY
See this thread from December 2010:

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubb...343#Post2109343

Saturday 12/3/2011: Normal 3K RPM shift from 1st to 2nd gear. Let up the clutch. Loud pop followed by engine shudder, then a screech. At the same time CEL comes on. Engine loses all power and shuts down. Coast to the side of the road. That sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach that something serious just happen. Cranking the starter confirms it. It is freewheeling like there is no load. Call tow. They bring it to their shop but state they can't look at it until Monday.

Later that day I go to the shop to get some personal items out of the car. Decide to scan the ECU to see what DTC it stored. It spits out P0335 which is crankshaft position sensor. That is puzzling. I would have expected camshaft position code if the timing belt broke.

Monday 12/5/2011: Shop calls. Camshaft is not turning and there's no compression. They suspect the timing belt broke and most likely there is valve damage. Ask for my OK to tear it down. I say OK.

Tuesday 12/6/2011: Shop calls again. Confirmed. Shredded timing belt. The tech working on it suspects that the spring in the tensioner assembly came off and lodged itself in the belt causing it to shred. He found the spring down by the crank gear. But of course that's just a theory on his part. The head was also removed and all 8 valves are bent. The head is being sent to a machine shop for rebuild and won't be back for at least a week. The pistons have slight divot marks on the crowns but otherwise the bottom end of the engine is OK.

So this timing belt lasted one year and 16,340 miles. Not very good.

Tuesday 12/13/2011: Everything is back together and in the shop's word the engine runs great. I drive it and agree. That evening after driving for about a half hour the CEL comes on. But engine is running fine and no drive-ability issues. I scan the ECU and it spits out P0401 which is EGR insufficient flow. I reset the ECU and DTC does not return.

Wednesday 12/14/2011: That morning the CEL comes on again. Scan it and it's P0401 again. The EGR is all electronic and I make sure the wiring harness is secure. It is. Bring it right back to the shop and even though they were busy they take it right in. They blow out the ports in the EGR lines with compressed air and discover that the port to the intake manifold is blocked. The tech is puzzled and decides he has no choice but remove the intake manifold and see what the problem is. Oh joy. He removes the intake and discovers that the intake manifold gasket he installed had no provision for the EGR port. In other words the gasket had no hole and was blocking the port. He compares the new gasket to the old and discovers several ports for the EGR were missing. More confusion and head scratching as they check the parts book again. The engine is a D17A1 which is the gasket they ordered. But then they discover there are 3 variants to this engine. Mine was an A6 variant which required a different gasket. They put in a quick order for the gasket. Later in the day it was installed which fixed the EGR issue. The shop said that this wrong gasket was their issue and did not charge me for this work.

In the weeks since the repair I have been keeping a close eye on oil and coolant levels. No problems. There have been no other issues. Engine has same power as before and runs fine. The shop did change the oil and filter after the repair. It was bulk 5W-30 and a NAPA filter. I've gone about 1300 miles since the repair so this past Saturday I changed the oil with my usual PP 5W-30 and I'll go back to 6K mile OCI's.

And now, what I'm sure everyone has been waiting for. Pictures of the carnage. Here they are.....

Shredded belt jammed in the tensioner
IMG_0914.jpg


Mangled tensioner spring
IMG_0917.jpg


One of the 8 bent valves
IMG_0922.jpg


Collateral damage. This is the crankshaft position sensor. It is located on the pulley end of the engine rather than the flywheel. The timing belt broke it off it's mount. This explains the P0335 DTC I pulled earlier.
IMG_0921.jpg


Moral of this sorry story. The timing belt and water pump installed in 2010 were OEM from Majestic Honda. The tensioner was aftermarket made by Dayco which came from Advance Auto. Dayco is a sponsor of this site. I decided to go with aftermarket rather than OEM because it was $25 cheaper. Is this the smoking gun? Who knows. But my advice to anyone doing a timing belt especially on an interference engine. Use all OEM parts only.
 
Originally Posted By: nfs480
Was the spring replaced with the tensioner?



Yes, a new spring is included with the tensioner.
 
Quote:
I decided to go with aftermarket rather than OEM because it was $25 cheaper.


That was about the most expensive $25 savings you could have. Sorry, but this is a good lesson to others. I assume the tensioner was made in China. I dont trust anything made in china. Cheap junk that doesn't work and inevitably breaks and has to be replaced and maybe cause even more expensive collateral damage. Thats enough to bankrupt someone. They couldn't plan a better and sneakier rip off than this imported china junk.

edit I see in the other thread the tensioner was made in Japan, who knows?
 
Yep on using OEM parts. On our 1998 Civic I took it to the Honda dealer and they charged $390 for everything including T-belt, WP, drive belts, coolant, labor and a free loaner car for the entire day.

It sucks that you had to go through that mess for a defective part that was a few bucks less expensive. My dad has the same exact car as you have and I'm sure you will keep that Civic for 40+ mileage they get.

I'm surprised they didn't catch the EGR gasket mistake as your car is a VP (DX) and not an EX or HX.
 
This is one place where buying cheaper parts (or deciding not to replace them at all) just isn't a good idea.

I have a co-worker with 145,000 miles on his Sienna on its original t-belt. He just doesn't care since "it's not an interference engine"...

He also doesn't care if his wife gets stranded on the side of the road...
 
Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette
Yep on using OEM parts. On our 1998 Civic I took it to the Honda dealer and they charged $390 for everything including T-belt, WP, drive belts, coolant, labor and a free loaner car for the entire day.

It sucks that you had to go through that mess for a defective part that was a few bucks less expensive. My dad has the same exact car as you have and I'm sure you will keep that Civic for 40+ mileage they get.

I'm surprised they didn't catch the EGR gasket mistake as your car is a VP (DX) and not an EX or HX.





Woah!!! That's an awesome deal for a timing belt service at a dealership with OE parts.

Is that still offered by that dealer? I may drive there from Atlanta just for that.

To the OP: Hope the car can recover okay.
 
Wow, this gives me some pause, considering I put a Dayco belt and tensioner in our D17A2 in October 2010.

I remember that some of the parts in the kit were Italian. Nothing was from China.
 
Originally Posted By: chrome
You mentioned 8 valves were bent, were they all the intake valves only?


The D17A1 is a SOHC 8 valve engine. So both the intake and exhaust valves showed some degree of damage.
 
You guys are correct. It is a SOHC 16 valve head. I never realized that. I've never had the valve cover off and I always associated SOHC heads with 8 valve. The assumption got the best of me. And the shop returned only 8 valves. Must have been just the ones that were bent. But I can say with certainty that it does not have the VTEC feature.
 
Sounds like you have a good shop to go to. Getting head work and reassembling everything in two days is pretty [censored] good. I'd agree with the theory though, I have never EVER heard the spring coming loose from a tensioner before. I have going after market if they come with a decent warranty.
 
Originally Posted By: Axe Man
The tensioner was aftermarket made by Dayco which came from Advance Auto.

Does the tensioner still spin freely?

Originally Posted By: Axe Man
But my advice to anyone doing a timing belt especially on an interference engine. Use all OEM parts only.

And people scoff at me because I insist on paying the premium for OE parts.
 
Originally Posted By: Axe Man
But I can say with certainty that it does not have the VTEC feature.


If it's a D17A6, it should have VTEC, but it's not the "performance" VTEC that most are familiar with. It's often called VTEC-E, or "economy" VTEC. When under a certain RPM (often around 2200 rpm) and engine load, four of the eight intake valves stay almost closed. Not quite completely closed...they do crack open...but for the most part they stay closed. The engine operates primarily on the four intake valves for better port velocity to maximize low-rpm output. Above a certain load and/or engine speed threshold, the VTEC mechanism slides a pin connecting the rocker arms of both intake valves on each cylinder; at this point, all eight intake valves operate off the large cam lobe, and you have a "conventional" 16-valve engine. The larger lobe can be made slightly "racy" for the engine size because only one of the intake valves is opening at slower engine speeds so you avoid the issues associated with a high-flowing head at slow engine speeds.

The result is nothing spectacular, but for the era and engine size it does pretty good. Some guys fashion up a "VTEC light" to show when the engine is effectively in 12-valve mode, so they can drive to that mode to maximize economy. It's hard, if not impossible, to feel the transition between 12-valve mode and 16-valve mode, so the light can be useful if that's your thing.

Glad you got it back on the road.
 
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