Engine Its been a long time

Its been a long time

Whats up all my Colorado friends or those of you that knew me before.

Its been a long time since I posted on the forums here but since I got married I have lost some interest in the car modification scene for now. Just posting here to share some signs/problems that might help someone else who is having the same problems figure out what is wrong with thier car.

I am currently at about 84k miles and started having some ticking/rattling sounds coming from the engine while at idle and 2000-3000rpm accelerating a couple weeks ago so I decided to bring the car in to Toyota. An oldschool guy at autozone tried to help me by listening to it and said that it sounded like a valve needed reallignment. Turns out that the tensioner, timing chain (edit, for some reason, saying timing BELT is always the first thing that comes to mind), a sprocket(?), and the water pump were all messed up. No clue as to what would cause this, maybe its just normal wear and tear. However, all of it is included under the extended warranty so all I have to pay is the $50 deductible on the warranty and good as new.

One thing that did have me kind of hesitant to let Toyota do the work was the initial diagnostic estimate of $178 that I would have had to pay just for them to look at it and if it wasn't something under warranty then I would have had to pay the diagnostic fee on top of whatever it cost for them to fix it. But if it was covered under warranty then no charge at all. They did say that it there were more signs than just the timing belt needing to be replaced but that they "couldn't say for sure" until they opened it up. I went ahead and let them do it and fortunately it was something covered or I would have been really pissed.

One question for anyone here that has had their serpentine belt replaced, where did you go to get that done? I get my oil changed at Jiffy Lube and they always tell me something in the engine that they cant move is blocking them from changing it. Where is the best place to get that done?

Jiffy lube excuse sounds pretty weak to me - this is on a 2001 Corolla in your sig?? Took me less than 10 minutes to change the serpentine belt, that includes the 5 minutes to have a few beers and get the right socket.

Also good to hear that the previous work was done under warranty - if this is also on a 8th gen Corolla - better have covered it if they actually changed a "timing belt"!! The 8th gen's 1ZZ-FE uses a timing chain, no belt anywhere. But in any case - sometimes that timing chain tensioner gets stuck, tends to wear the chain out faster. Waterpumps are pretty tough - but if the mileage starts to go past 100K - then it will be a matter of time until something gives.

LOL, you all still alive and kicking up there in Denver?

Heh, we all are!

yes sir we all still here lol

I agree. The hell with Denver! Let's all move to Hays Kansas. That's where the REAL action is.

You're always young, as long as it's at heart.

Its a known problem with the 8th gens, the belt tensioner assembly, (along with your serpentine belt) need to be replaced. I think I got mine done at a firestone 30k miles ago (im at 104k now), somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-400 .

wow glad you posted that up. i'm almost hitting the 73k mark and i'm getting that problem...shaking idle which is really annoying. unfortunately the car is no longer under warranty.

Well its like the people that pay 100.00 to get a CD player installed in their dash. Thats ridiculous in my opinion, but thats because I know how. But if you dont know what your doing, the ease of it has no impact on the way you have to get it done. For myself, I dont know the first thing about a car engine (sad as that may be) and I would definitely not know what I was doing. Even though I am under warranty, honestly unless I knew someone personally to do it, I would have still brought it to a shop to get it done because I dont know how 100% to do it myself.

45 minutes if you drive like him.