Consider buying American!

When off-boost, which is a minority of the time.

 

LOL

Idiot.

 

Would you care to elaborate on RWD advantages
over FWD in passenger cars driven on a regular road?

 

Don't be silly. The newsgroups are full of cars breaking cam belts - but
how often do you hear of a chain going? There may well be some belts with
a service interval of 100,000 miles but they're not the norm.

It's no big deal to change the chain(s) on many engines - easier than
belts on some.

And when they break the engine is scrap?

Now you are being silly.

Have you ever worked on an engine?

 

I never had a chain go, but I did have a chain tensioner go on a
Toyota 22R.

The failed tensioner let the chain skip, doing similar damage to what
a broken belt might have done.

 

I'm not saying it never happens - but nothing like as often as belts
breaking. And of course most chains will warn you if something is wrong.

 

because you don't know or care about chain stretch doesn't mean it's not
happening. chains stretch enough to be out of spec in about this
mileage span.

belts "go" when they're too old and have been used too long. chains
usually wear out to the extent that they wreck the rest of the timing
gear and turn the engine into a sluggish polluter.

i'm a honda guy. honda belts are 105k miles.

cite examples.

"when" is a big assumption - an assumption that you can't read the
owners manual and be bothered to look at mileage.

no, it's fact. as you'd know if you had experience in this stuff.

"ridiculous" is asking a question like that after trying to argue that
chain stretch letting cam timing drift doesn't matter because you can't
hear it.

 

don't confuse the guy with facts - he's already made up his mind.

 

Okay, I'll bite: Tell me what *you have done* to recover a FWD on a
descent when you started to lose traction. World class rally driver
points are yours if you can handle that situation.

Regarding the "neither" business, you're just advocating sloppy grammar.
The subject of the sentence is "neither," not "of these two," and
"neither" is singular except if you also say things like, "You gave it
to him and I." Look it up.

 

This seems on topic for this thread, from the 02/16/08 NY Times:

The New York Times
February 16, 2008
Editorial
A Fighting Chance?

There seems to be no end to the Big Three automakers' woes. This week,
General Motors offered a new buyout plan to its 74,000 unionized workers
in the United States --- those who didn't take the 2006 buyout offer. The
Ford Motor Company and Chrysler also have plans to buy out thousands of
employees. Still, there is a glimmer of hope: the companies plan to hire
new workers to replace at least some, and perhaps a substantial share,
of those they let go.

Detroit wants to take advantage of the contracts signed last year with
the United Automobile Workers union. They allow the carmakers to hire
new entry-level workers at much lower wages and with smaller benefit
packages than current employees. This would reduce their labor costs
significantly, giving them more of a chance to compete with the foreign
car companies that are eating their lunch.

Foreign carmakers already have about half the American market, and
analysts forecast that within the next five years they will build more
cars here than Detroit's automakers. Though the Big Three culled tens of
thousands of workers in the United States in the last couple of years,
they are still operating way under capacity.

Detroit's troubles are only partly because of their failure to design
cars that Americans want to buy. Labor arrangements put together decades
ago, in an era of less competition, have saddled them with an older work
force and higher labor costs than the Japanese and Korean companies that
have set up plants in union-free states.

The American carmakers' problems underscore the need for a
government-backed system of universal health care, which would relieve
some of the costs that have made competing so much harder.

The good news is that the carmakers and the union seem willing to change
their old ways of doing business. As part of the new contracts,
automakers agreed to put up billions in cash and other assets for trusts
that would pay for retirees' health care, taking those costs off their
own books. The union allowed the companies to hire cheaper noncore
workers. These measures will reduce labor costs and give Detroit a
better chance to compete head to head with Toyota, Honda, Nissan and
Hyundai. If Detroit's carmakers can also design more desirable cars,
this might be the beginning of their turnaround.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

 

where's the bit about bringing in automation to make production more
efficient and more competitive so we don't need to outsource to china?
there will be no "turnaround" without that.

 

since braking is from the front in both fwd and rwd, you go ahead and
tell /me/ what /you/ would do. given that you're joe schmoe, you're
driving an automatic and all, and you've got mental paralysis preventing
you from doing the old bus drivers trick.

ps. spinning rears on cars don't offer much traction in this situation
you know. and buses have their weight at the back.

are you a world class rally driver?

google: 'Your search - "mike scheer" +"rally driver" - did not match any
documents.'

ok, my typo on "statement". there are two statements and i should have
phrased the whole sentence for plural accordingly.

 

jim beam wrote:

I wish. I'm just a guy who has logged about 200K winter miles in
northern New England and NY state, and knows what it feels like when you
lift off the gas to control a skid in an FWD only and then have the back
of the car come around. The bus drivers' trick works much better. Give
me a balanced RWD with four good winter tires, please, although my 07
GTI has better manners than the 76 Accord did.

That's a relief. For a while there I was wondering if you were
consistently right the first time on everything.

 

We are talking about car ownership and maintenance, why is have a wife
and 2 daughters driving some of the cars bullshitting. I have always
owned at least 3 cars and usually 4. Right now it is a Prelude and 2
Ford trucks, one Harley and 2 boats.

 

The wheel well cowling does not come off of a 97 Prelude, only the
lower splash guard and then you have about 1.5" between the face of
the engine and the cowling. Again perhaps I am not using the
nomenclature you use but it is one big chunk of metal that the motor
mount bolts to and it ain't moving.
I suppose if you have small hands and a carefully selected set of
sockets and adapters you can get all the bolts out but I still say you
are not doing in is less than 2-3 hours.

On old American cars it is just about the same as putting in a belt
and you can see what you are doing. because it is in front.
Pull the radiator, water pump and belt drive accessories, then you
have 6-8 bolts holding on the timing chain cover and 2 bolts to remove
the drive pulleys (that I agree you should replace)
This is also your chance to perhaps play with the cam timing if you
had an emission control set of pulleys installed. (early 70s problem)
On some of the cars where they were trying to trick up a better number
they just retarded the timing a drgree or two and put a pump on it.
You probably wanted anothes set of distributor weights and springs
too.

Usually you will be able to track the wear of the chain very simply.
Look at the clamping surface on the distributor. If you see a steady
progression of marks where the timing has had to be advanced, that is
your rate of wear (kids, back in the olden days we had these things
called timing lights, everyone had one)

 

Remember this conversation?

before you post stuff like this, since you've obviously been able to
find this group, you should check the google archives first and find
the
faq's before posting stories of woe. the fact is, this job is real
easy
if you know what you're doing. so, this is not a story about hondas
being miserable, it's about your ability to do your homework being
miserable.

 

If chain stretch was an issue makers would fit tensioners that eliminated
it. All you need for this is tensioners on 'both sides' of the run.

If you care to do some research you'll find plenty evidence of belts
snapping well within the service interval.

I'm a 'BMW guy'. BMW saw sense and ditched belts some 15 years ago. And
I'll bet Honda will too. The market hates them - and for good reason.

Pretty well any where the engine has to come out to change the belt.

Do some research. Several makers have shortened the cam belt change time
from original. Just enter cam belt in Google and read for a few days...

Then perhaps you'd give some examples of vehicles failing emission tests
due to worn chains?

BTW, you don't need 'long runs' for OHC engines.

I'll take that as a no, then. Another armchair mechanic.

 

Possibly NEVER. I know of old jag 6 pots running on the same chains they were
built with after 300k and my old E38 V8 had over 198K and running on the
original engine components.

Whereas many a friend has had to swap belts on cars with less than 60k on them
and a colleague had to have virtually a new engine when her belt went over Xmas
2005 costing her over £300 or $600US at the time.........

A rattling chain may break but more often will not - a belt will break often
with disaster following it.

Hugh
--

Sir Hugh of Bognor

The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.

Intelligence is not knowing the answer but knowing where and how to find it!

Hugh Gundersen

Bognor Regis, W.Sussex, England, UK

 

Why does BMW care? They've created a market in the US where their
target market leases the cars and turns them around before the warranty
is up.

BMW doesn't give a shit about maintenance costs down the road. That's
some other wanker's problem, not BMWs.

 

Thank you, Gordon. Universal health care in other countries isn't free
and the Health Care Fairy doesn't pay for it, either, taxes do (of course).

Wheels, axles & lug nuts.

BTW, Jim, I did say no *direct* health care and/or retirement costs,
which is, in fact, the case. I certainly didn't suggest those plans are
free or that the foreign companies don't pay taxes.