The Lemon Fool

Our son bought his very first car last summer, a 9 year old Toyota Yaris that he's driven all around France, Belgium and Holland.

He came home and a few weeks ago he noticed a sudden loss of power. The car sounded fine, engine, gearbox, everything, but much less power than before.

The garage he bought it from have just declared that it's the 'turbo chain' and it needs replacing. To our surprise, they agreed that it shouldn't have happened and is thus under guarantee. So no problem, they will replace it but apparently the small print in the guarantee only covers up to 6 hours of labour. I'm not sure if this is strictly true and will check, but assuming it is, what are the chances of requiring more than 6 hours? I have no idea where this chain goes or what it looks like.

Steve

Timing chain, surely?

--kiloran

If a garage mechanic told me the turbo chain needed replacing, I'd think twice before using them, but then again, 6 hours free labour is not to be sniffed at. I'm not conversant with that engine, but 6 hours might be enough. What the timing chain does, it connects the camshaft to the crankshaft, to time the opening of the valves. It's under the casting at the left hand side of the engine as you look at it from the front of the car. What the turbo chain does, I've no idea!

dp

Agree I've never heard of a turbo chain, but a timing chain would surely result is symptoms much worse than a loss of power?

If a garage mechanic told me the turbo chain needed replacing, I'd think twice before using them,

Perhaps they were mis-heard and meant something like 'The turbo train' which while a new term to me makes some sense.

Turbo charging an engine involves quite a lot of piping that wanders from the exhaust to the intake (never the most elegant of trips around the outside of the motor) with the piping carrying compressed air or hot exhaust gas. If it starts leaking air somewhere, you'll lose power but the engine can still run.

My old Rover 218 turbo diesel, must have had a simiar problem. As time went by, the fuel economy got better while the performance got worse - With an engine set to generate 75hp when working properly, it needed a serious run up to even get past a lorry on the motorway. Long since sold on, but the symptoms fit.

Giving the benefit of the doubt they might mean the train of pipes that run around the motor. Or it could be garage speak for 'We will make something up'.

#1 Daughter has an old Panda which is doing the momentary squeal noise when starting from cold - To me that indicates a drive belt needs tightening or renewing. She took it to the local Fiat garage and they wanted to put in a new starter motor.

B.

I had the turbo bearings go at 40K on a VW Golf tdi. Didn't really lose much power just sounded like a police car siren. Apparently the things coke up with burnt oil when you stop the engine quickly after running hot, say at the motorway services.

Anyway, long story short, VW agreed to provide the parts and the VW garage "just" charged for labour, that came to about £400, this was about ten years ago, so perhaps more than 6 hours.

John

PrincessB wrote:

If a garage mechanic told me the turbo chain needed replacing, I'd think twice before using them,

Perhaps they were mis-heard and meant something like 'The turbo train' which while a new term to me makes some sense.

Turbo charging an engine involves quite a lot of piping that wanders from the exhaust to the intake (never the most elegant of trips around the outside of the motor) with the piping carrying compressed air or hot exhaust gas. If it starts leaking air somewhere, you'll lose power but the engine can still run.

B.

Actually, that makes a lot of sense; the description of the problem matches that of my son. I should have said that this is all in North Italy and although he speaks fluent italian, he probably wouldn't understand a new technical term. I think they said 'catene turbo' which may mean 'linkage system' as well as 'chain'.

Anyway, we'll find out next week. If he comes back in an old Fiat 500, we'll know it took a lot more than six hours to fix!

Steve

Turbines are driven by exhaust gas, not chains.

Timing chains or more so nowadays belts, can jump a cog if very worn, although belts more normally break. Which can be terminal for the engine.

I ran a Renault 5 Turbo years ago. Collecting it from a main dealer after service - it was late, the garage was shut when I collected - the power was way down. Like driving a milk float.
Opening the bonnet I saw that the duct taking the turbo air into the carb was lying on top of the engine. The mechanic had forgotten to refit it.
So much for main dealers, not their first sin .... and it confirmed my suspicion that they didn't carry out a road test after servicing.

V8

In theory, a timing chain can slip a notch in just the same way as a timing belt, and it won't necessarily kill the engine - just rob it of most of its power. (That's why you have a tensioner, to deal with any slackness that might develop in the belt or chain). Even so, a chain that's slipped a link would raise some questions about the state of the sprockets that it was riding on.

There's a lot of dismantling, which might be why the Honest John forum reports five hours labour to replace the chain. https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post ... tm?t=93110. Seems to fit your son's description.

And here's what the timing chain looks like. A shockingly shonky video, but you'll notice that a lot has been stripped off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9rabNPKKeI

BJ