Thought I'd give you guys a heads up...
Sunday afternoon my girlfriend's 01 Subaru Outback wouldn't start. It has the 3L H6 in it and 113K on the clock and in pretty good shape.
I went down to take a look. It cranks fine. I shot some ether up the intake to see if it would catch, dumped some fuel in the tank in case the gas gauge was stuck, etc. I don't know the first thing about subarus - couldn't even find the dizzy or reach the spark plugs to check for spark. Though I didn't have much time to look either.
So she had it towed to Ed's Automotive on Nevada - a shop she's used for years and was pretty comfortable with. The guys there told her that she had a broken timing chain and the engine was trashed. When she pressed them for options, they offered to give her $200 to $300 for the car!
I thought this sounded suspicious - timing chain going out at 113K, no strange noises from the engine the last time it ran, or when we cranked it. Cranked normally, as opposed to cranking with no compression on half the engine (has two timing chains, one for each side). The last bit - offering to buy it for essentially the scrap metal price - definitely pegged my BS meter.
So I went down with her to talk to them yesterday afternoon. Ed wasn't there, so we talked to the guy that did the "diagnosis". Asked how he came to the conclusion that the timing chain had broken - he said he "just listened to it" with a stethescope and could tell that "nothing was turning in there". I asked about the lack of suspicious noise, cranking, etc and was told that "they don't always do that". Asked how much it would cost to fix it - he claimed that "nobody in town would touch that engine". Only option was a new engine at a cost of $10K. I asked about labor on installing a used engine and was told $5K or $6K.
So we stepped outside to talk about options a bit and I did a quick search for subaru shops and found one up the road - Import Speciality Automotive on Boulder. Drove over there to talk to them. The guy we talked to was also very sceptical - he would charge on the order of $70 to $100 to disassemble enough to confirm a timing chain problem and would expect some noise or cranking difference, etc. And if it was a bad timing chain, he estimated the repair at $1K to $2K depending on the amount of damage. Also scoffed at the $300 offer, claiming it was worth at least $1K even with a bad engine.
We decided that a 2nd opinion was in order and had the car towed from Ed's to ISA.
Got the diagnosis back today ... wait for it ... wait for it
The engine was flooded.
Now it's still an open question as to why that happened. I'm wondering if there is some intermittent spark problem that caused the no-start, and she flooded it with all the cranking. But it's a long way between flooded and a broken timing chain.
Sunday afternoon my girlfriend's 01 Subaru Outback wouldn't start. It has the 3L H6 in it and 113K on the clock and in pretty good shape.
I went down to take a look. It cranks fine. I shot some ether up the intake to see if it would catch, dumped some fuel in the tank in case the gas gauge was stuck, etc. I don't know the first thing about subarus - couldn't even find the dizzy or reach the spark plugs to check for spark. Though I didn't have much time to look either.
So she had it towed to Ed's Automotive on Nevada - a shop she's used for years and was pretty comfortable with. The guys there told her that she had a broken timing chain and the engine was trashed. When she pressed them for options, they offered to give her $200 to $300 for the car!
I thought this sounded suspicious - timing chain going out at 113K, no strange noises from the engine the last time it ran, or when we cranked it. Cranked normally, as opposed to cranking with no compression on half the engine (has two timing chains, one for each side). The last bit - offering to buy it for essentially the scrap metal price - definitely pegged my BS meter.
So I went down with her to talk to them yesterday afternoon. Ed wasn't there, so we talked to the guy that did the "diagnosis". Asked how he came to the conclusion that the timing chain had broken - he said he "just listened to it" with a stethescope and could tell that "nothing was turning in there". I asked about the lack of suspicious noise, cranking, etc and was told that "they don't always do that". Asked how much it would cost to fix it - he claimed that "nobody in town would touch that engine". Only option was a new engine at a cost of $10K. I asked about labor on installing a used engine and was told $5K or $6K.
So we stepped outside to talk about options a bit and I did a quick search for subaru shops and found one up the road - Import Speciality Automotive on Boulder. Drove over there to talk to them. The guy we talked to was also very sceptical - he would charge on the order of $70 to $100 to disassemble enough to confirm a timing chain problem and would expect some noise or cranking difference, etc. And if it was a bad timing chain, he estimated the repair at $1K to $2K depending on the amount of damage. Also scoffed at the $300 offer, claiming it was worth at least $1K even with a bad engine.
We decided that a 2nd opinion was in order and had the car towed from Ed's to ISA.
Got the diagnosis back today ... wait for it ... wait for it
The engine was flooded.
Now it's still an open question as to why that happened. I'm wondering if there is some intermittent spark problem that caused the no-start, and she flooded it with all the cranking. But it's a long way between flooded and a broken timing chain.
