Jeff Blankenship wrote:
> My wife's '94 Saturn SL2 went into the shop on Friday after more people
> than me told her it sounds like it has rocks in the engine. The dealer
> said the timing chain was disintegrating. The car has just 25,000 miles
> on it, and the oil has been changed fairly regularly, but the dealer is
> saying it wasn't changed enough, and thats what they're blaming the failure
> on. I think thats bull, but I need some other opinions.
Up until about '95, Saturn engines had a rather small oil hole in the
chain tensioner (kinda sounds like a Porsche, eh?) that was very
susceptible to becoming gunked up if you didn't keep up with oil
changes. When you say you changed the oil "fairly regularly"... what
exactly does that mean? I have 52k on my '94, drive the piss out of it
every day and have yet to incur an engine problem (unless you count one
broken upper engine mount at 30k or the bad plug wire last winter). I
change the oil about every 3k (give or take 500 miles) with quality oil
of the weight specified by the manufacturer.
> They're charging about $600 to fix it, including pulling the oil pan to clean
> out the bits of the chain and whatnot.
You could always do it yourself. I've found many Saturn dealers (I used
to say most, but since GM has taken over...) will bend over backwards to
help you in a situation such as this, but if you have no proof of
regular oil changes at the proper interval, I'm afraid you're on your
own.
> I'm wondering if this isn't just a bit unusual, since the chain was hawked
> by Saturn as a durability advantage. Also, what effect might the chain
> fragments have on the rest of the engine? In other words, is she paying
> big bucks to repair an engine that really needs an overhaul, or is it
> going to be fine? Should Saturn pay part of the bill, since this has
> been going on for quite a while, but I couldn't get her to take it in?
> I think its been going on long enough that the dealer should have noticed
> whenever it was serviced last.
Saturns are generally a well-engineered car, and most will last a very
long time, but not if they don't get the maintenance they need. And
just like every other car, if you let little problems go, they can
become big expensive problems real quick.
--
Loren Williams | Homepage - http://www2.southwind.net/~lsw
'94 Saturn SC2 | Wichita Region SCCA - http://www2.southwind.net/~scca
|