Have to love it when your Wife's car does this...

[mdocod]

Wife was on her way home last Thursday on the highway doing about 65-75MPH and suddenly the vehicle lurched and lost all power. She pulled over. I came and towed it home behind the SUV and started investigating the problem. Didn't take too long to realize that the engine was not going to turn over and that there must be some catastrophic engine damage.

Spent this morning pulling the head to see how bad it was....

I'm thrilled...

Timing belt is in-tact, tensioner appears to be working.... Either it jumped time or dropped a valve which started this chain reaction of destruction.

Kia recommended a timing belt change at 60K, and this has about double that mileage on it. Not sure if a replaced timing belt would have prevented this though. In all of the timing belts I have seen pulled from vehicles, usually far passed the recomended due date, I have yet to see one come out that didn't look pristine.

I have a bad taste in my mouth for Kia right now. Modern engines are usually the last thing to fail on a car even with **** poor maintenance.

I also can't figure out why so many engines are still being designed as interference engines.

Resale value with a working engine is half the price of a replacement engine (assuming I put it in). Not worth it... Might check to see how much it would be to have the head re-done. I'm going to inspect the cylinder walls for damage, if the valve pieces stayed lodged the way it appears they did, then the cylinder walls may not be too bad off. A quick honing and dropping some new pistons in might do the trick. Not sure yet if it's worth the time/effort/money.

Probably time to find a new used car. Would like to find her something AWD... Maybe a Subaru, they tend to be priced really well unless you start looking at the ones that come with those really nice features, like seats and steering wheels.... lol.

--


Eric

 

[Illum]

oo:

that is one hell of a catastrophic valve failure
out of 16 valves...I'd say only 2 are still sealing
Dropping a valve might be the reason for this, as all of the ones affected are on one side

 

[JohnR66]

Wow Eric

20 years ago I had an Isuzu I-mark. I was entering the highway when the engine just stopped. In my case the timing belt driven water pump bearings failed and caused the belt to jump some cogs. I was lucky and had to replace a couple bent valves, pump and belt.

Worn belts may not break. You should be mad at yourself if you ran the belt 2x over it's recommended replacement interval. Engine could have gone over 200K miles with proper maintenance.

That head looks to have some mean gouges in it. Not sure if it is worth fixing. Check for bottom end engine damage because it spun down with piston chunks down there.

 

[LukeA]

Modern engines are usually the last thing to fail on a car even with **** poor maintenance.

By all accounts this one lasted twice as long as it should have with the maintenance schedule it was on, so I don't think Kia is at fault.

I also can't figure out why so many engines are still being designed as interference engines.

Efficiency. If you were to design a non-interference engine with the same displacement, you'd need to do any of the following: reduce the compression ratio (reduces thermodynamic efficiency), shorten the valve travel (reduces fluid flow in and out of the cylinder, would need a turbo to keep the power up), or dramatically increase the length of the stroke relative to the diameter of the bore (increases work lost due to friction).

 

[Jack Reacher]

I'd be guessing a rebore of the block plus new oversize rings, also (possibly) a new head, with at least new valves and seat inserts, and a bit of a shave. A short engine is probably gonna be more dependent on the state of the con-rods and gudgeons, and whether or not the crankshaft is bent.

Dunno... it's hard to say definitively without seeing it in the flesh.

— Good luck, Jack.

 

[KD5XB]

By all accounts this one lasted twice as long as it should have with the maintenance schedule it was on, so I don't think Kia is at fault.

That sounds entirely reasonable -- except the timing belt is still intact...

Efficiency. If you were to design a non-interference engine with the same displacement, you'd need to do any of the following: reduce the compression ratio (reduces thermodynamic efficiency), shorten the valve travel (reduces fluid flow in and out of the cylinder, would need a turbo to keep the power up), or dramatically increase the length of the stroke relative to the diameter of the bore (increases work lost due to friction).

Or else cut -- uh ---eyebrows??? slots??? What the heck do you call those slots??? -- in the top surface of the pistons for the valves to fit in. End result is next to nothing -- except the engine doesn't go to pieces if the timing belt breaks.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Holy cow! Pretty catastrophic indeed.

The exact same thing happened to an old Mazda we had, only the timing belt snapped on the freeway and that's all she wrote. Yes it was an interference engine and it sure did interfere!

 

[Diesel_Bomber]

Nothing to worry about Mdocod, that'll buff right out. A little elbow grease and you'll be fine.

When I was younger I had the timing chain break on my Nova. Bent all the valves and bent or broke all the pushrods. I slapped new junkyard valves and pushrods in it and she still ran 13's. Another time, I got called in to look at someone else's screw up. I don't remember what car or engine it was, but someone had replaced the water pump(driven off the timing belt) and not realized that they were messing with anything more serious than an accessory drive belt. I got called in when the car wouldn't start and no one could figure out why. I figured out what had happened, got it retimed, and did a compression test. The needle on the compression tester didn't even twitch, on any cylinder. I gave them the bad news and ran away; I wanted nothing to do with cleaning up that mess.

 

[LukeA]

That sounds entirely reasonable -- except the timing belt is still intact...

Do you wait 6000 miles to change your (conventional) oil and blame Mobil1 for the engine wear because the oil is still liquid?

Or else cut -- uh ---eyebrows??? slots??? What the heck do you call those slots??? -- in the top surface of the pistons for the valves to fit in. End result is next to nothing -- except the engine doesn't go to pieces if the timing belt breaks.

That still reduces the compression ratio and fuel efficiency preparing for a scenario that is preempted by inexpensive, quick, simple maintenance once every 60k miles.

 

[Black Rose]

I'm assuming it's a single cam engine.

Seems rather weird that only the valves on one side of the head went on an expedition while the valves on the other side stayed intact.

 

[JohnR66]

Do you wait 6000 miles to change your (conventional) oil and blame Mobil1 for the engine wear because the oil is still liquid?

Actually, 6000mi oil change interval is no harm at all. Many manufacturers recommend 5000mi now. With the performance of synthetic oils, you could do 7500mi. 3,000 mi change is wasteful myth perpetuated by people with a stake in the game.

 

[JohnR66]

All is not lost. The chunk of metal will keep a few Crees cool if you know what I mean

 

[Inliner]

I'm assuming it's a single cam engine.

Seems rather weird that only the valves on one side of the head went on an expedition while the valves on the other side stayed intact.

Dual cam motor. Only the exhaust valves were placed into harms way when the belt jumped time. That motor is done. I really doubt those holes will cleanup with a hone. These modern thinwall castings are not designed with rebuilds and oversized pistons in mind either. I'd call it a crapshoot if you can even find OS pistons. And the crankase is deffinitely contaminated. You'll spend more trying to fix this motor than getting a used engine.

This reminds me that my MX3 is due a belt soon...

 

[MarNav1]

Sorry for your misfortune Eric. Hard to know the cause for sure. That motor is toast for sure. Looks like the exhaust got out of sync somehow. I'm not a fan of these newer engines myself but that's another story. Anyway I hope you can come to some reasonable conclusion.

 

[Monocrom]

As a car-lover, those pics are hard to look at. Sorry about what happened to your wife, and the car.

If you don't me asking, which model year was the KIA?

The old patrol vehicle at work would always break down, so I have a lot of experience with a variety of current models. One was a KIA Spectra that was very well made with a ton of features. Must admit, I was surprised.

 

[DM51]

Very sorry to see that, Eric. But if it is any comfort to you, this is very minor damage vs. the havoc that Mrs. DM51 has managed to cause to (and with) cars over the years.

 

[Glasstream15]

My neighbor was very unhappy that her Nissan X-Terra died the same way. When the manufacturer says something needs to be replaced, don't cheap out or you already know the results. Or buy a Model A. Maintenance is pretty simple on them. I had one in high school.

 

[Fulgeo]

Interesting pics and sorry to see your misfortune. I do maintain my personal cars well but over the years I feel that once I get 100K+ miles on a car it done its job. I know many of us feel that modern cars should go 200K miles but I always feel after 100K somethings bound to break. I have never had a catastrophic engine failure of any kind in 30+ years of driving. My misfortune on 100K+ mile cars tends to take the form of transmission and drivetrain failures.

 

[HarryN]

Well, looking for the silver lining in all of this, now you have a chance to buy a car made in North America and not contribute to the merchandise trade deficit.

 

[mdocod]

Thank you all for your thoughts and kind words.

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I am pretty upset with myself that I did not get around to replacing the timing belt.... As other have said, it went twice as long as Kia said it should, but then, as others have pointed out (like I pointed out originally), there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the timing belt, in fact, it was likely the timing belt staying in tact through the event that spread the damage to more valves. It is a DOHC, which is why the exhaust valves saw unequal treatment from the intake valves. Most of the intake valves are bent anyways though. ehe...

For those interested: 1.5L DOHC 2002 Rio

I've been doing some research around the net. Lots of folks with these engines in the 75-150K range are having similar catastrophic failures but they usually open it up and find either a broken timing belt or cogs stripped from the belt. In most cases the timing belt was not replaced at 60K.

We have been planning on getting this done as soon as we could afford it and had the time to do it for about a year or more. The subject of the timing belt has not been ignored but rather put off for sake of an attempt at being frugal. It may be a $30 part, but while there, it's considered proper to replace the water pump and tensioner in my experience, so I was figuring over $100 and a solid afternoon and evening of turning wrenches. The motor mount goes right through the center of where the belt is, and removing the bottom shroud looks like the alternator and power steering pump and possible the AC compressor might all have to come out. It's a compact car, so nothing is easy to get to. Spend as much time trying to figure out what configuration of extensions and swivels and wobbles are required to get to a bolt as you actually do taking it off.

My experience with timing belts and the associated hardware in other engines has been that they will often hold out for darn near the life of most engines. Pulled the belt from my Rodeo at 176K miles, Father-in-law pulled from his 89 Prelude at about 200K, Never even bothered on my old accord that I traded in at 215K, (previous owner may have done it not sure).

The only reason I did the isuzu is because I already had most everything torn out of the way to do it to fix a coolant leak under the intake manifold and replace valve cover gaskets. When I pulled the timing case covers I almost wanted to take the new belt and water pump and tensioner back, Everything looked fine, and I knew that this was a non-interference engine. Went ahead and did it anyways, but probably didn't need to.

In reality, looking at the results, there is nothing conclusive that points to a timing belt failure. I don't mean to say that this is Kia's fault, but rather, that there is something *interesting* to consider here. The bad taste in my mouth is emotional, which means that it will lack logic and there is nothing I can do about that until the emotion subsides. Nothing wrong with me feeling sour about this car manufacture at this time.

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I'm perfectly fine with the idea of engines being designed as interference configurations if there is some benefit to it, if anyone here had had the chance to drive this thing, you would understand that this engine did not have any of those benefits. It's the slowest car I have ever driven next to a VW bus. My little suzuki swift would blow it away in a 0-60.

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If we are comparing the life of a timing belt to the life of engine oil, and we are assuming that the 3K oil change recomendation is still the "by the book" way to do things, then the timing belt should have lasted 180,000 miles, lol. Obviously not on a Turbo with Dino but the truth is oils last a long time in modern engines. (oh, and for the record, no matter how many used oil analysis results I see I still can't seem to push myself to put more than 5K on oil and filer, even synthetics, not sure why, probably an emotional thing).

Wife wants an SUV anyways. So this is an excuse to make that happen. She's been borrowing her Dad's 1985 RamCharger to get to work the last few days and really liking it.

Eric