Advice/help Please: Big End Possibly Gone

[Hax]

Hi guys - my first post here and it's a shout for some help please.

 

I've got a 2000 plate (X reg) Xantia with a 2.0 HDi engine.

 

It's done about 94,000 miles and on Monday I put the car in to have the cam belt replaced and an oil and fitler change done.

 

Picked the car up Monday evening and all was fine. Driving to work on Tuesday morning and I noticed that the car had lost a lot of power - my foot was closer to the floor than it should have been and I was still losing speed. Also, it sounded a bit "rough" - and I thought first of all that maybe the exhaust had gone. When slowing down I could hear and feel that it was more than this with a loud "knocking" from the engine area. At the time it happened, I was doing about 70mph on the motorway :s

 

The car's now back with the garage that did the work on Monday and the bloke there says that to him it "sounds" like the big end has gone - he started the car to have a listen. But, he's not sure if that's 100% correct or what the cause of the problem is.

 

Now, my problem is that I know very little about cars. Sooo.... What's the likelihood of the problem the car has develpoed NOT being related to the work the garage did on Monday? My concern is that they'll try and worm their way out of accepting responsibility for the problem - and I don't have enough knowledge to argue back. I hope that they don't do that - I went to them because in the past they've been reasonable and helpful and you get the impression that they're not ripping you off!

 

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

[iannez]

sounds to me like the timing has jumped a tooth and the knocking noise you can hear is a diesel knock. or the garage has forgot to put oil in the car after draining it. never heard of a bottom end going on an hdi so think this problem will be down to something the garage has done.

[Hax]

Thanks for replying Iannez.

 

I didn't have any oil warning lights on (neither pressure or level) - so I'd "assume" that the garage did put oil back in - that said, I didn't check when I picked it up - maybe I should have done :s

 

I'll just have to sit tight and hope to hear something later today...

[Guest Colin Hunter]

As Iannez says, it's not likely to be something unconnected with the job you've had done. I agree that the new belt may have jumped a tooth (or 2) but disagree with the Knock theory. That would mean that the injection timing had become too advanced and that's unlikely as it's electronically timed from a crankshaft sensor. Yes if it's a mechanical pump as in the 1.9 td which is driven by the timing belt. I'd say the most likely source of the knock is the valves hitting the pistons if the timing has slipped. As the engine is still running you may have got away with it! It's not unlikely that the garage mechanic didn't tighten the tensioner idler sufficiently, leading to the perfect running when you picked the car up, then slackenning off and causing the fault. Time will tell! The good news is that you can find good spare engines quite readily if they've wrecked yours. See this ebay shop for instance. http://stores.ebay.co.uk/NCS-PEUGEOT-AND-C...sQ3amesstQQtZkm

 

Hope you get it sorted. It's highly likely that it's their fault!

[Guest rowls]

Just a thought but is the bottom pulley on the crank that the auxillary belt runs on ok. they have a rubber damper built into the pulley and when these go the engine can sound like a tractor engine!

[iannez]

pully would not cause lack of power. your right colin. forgot about the phased timing pump.

[Hax]

Thanks for the further replies guys.

 

Still waiting for the garage to find time to put my car up on a ramp to look at it in amongst their other jobs...

[Hax]

OK - just got off the phone with the garage and have a bit of an update...

 

He started by saying: "I probably should have changed it at the time" - which sounds like an admission of guilt to me...

 

And he then went on to say something about it being the bottom crank pulley having sheared leaving a broken rocker. He's got a new part on order and is about to fit it in the hope that that solves the problem.

 

Now, what I've written up there may or may not make sense - the guy was mumbling and rambling through what he was saying as quick as he could so I may not have got it wholly right. But, does it make any sense to anyone out there? Does it shed any light on the problem?

 

Again, any help/comments will be greatly appreciated.

 

Cheers guys!

 

Adam

[Hax]

All sorted now... Picked the car up this morning and there was no charge - so I'm a happy bunny! :rolleyes:

 

Apparently, when changing the timing belt, he had pegged two of the cogs in place and the lower one (as in lower on the diagram he showed me) had a bit of play in it - but he thought it would be ok. However, it would appear that the timing was slightly out and one of the pistons hit it's valve. Luckily, there's a weak "rocker" there that broke which resulted in the engine only running on 3 cyclinders.

 

Apparently there's no real damage - and the engine does seem to be running fine now. Time will tell I guess :lol:

 

Cheers for the help on here all :D

 

Happy Christmas!