pits200

Ok, I posted this topic in the CL forum and asked some opinions there, but I figured I would get a much broader range of opinions here in Car Talk.

At the end of November 2009 my 2001 CL-S with 199,500 miles on it was running great and I commented to my wife that it's such an amazing highway car. Sure enough I'm driving on the New Jersey turnpike when my car shuts down. I have it towed to the nearest Acura dealership which was in Princeton, NJ.

I knew it wasn't good news because as I waited for the tow truck all my electronics stayed on which ruled out the battery & alternator.

So the tech tells me my timing belt snapped by popping open the oil cap while I cranked the engine. Obviously this led to valve damage, etc... So I told them to fix the timing belt and we'll go from there.

The issue here arises is that I had my timing belt replaced last June 2008 with 155k on the odometer.

So I go into the shop next day to look at my car and the tech who replaced my timing belt told me that I have a law suit against the shop who replaced my timing belt last year. They said they over torqued the timing belt tensioner bolt so hard that it sheered off. (See pics below)



The tensioner bolt is only supposed to be torqued to 19ft/lbs and the dealership said they have no problem signing a sworn affidavit that the sole reason for bolt failure was over torquing. The shop who did the job last year tightened the bolt so tight that it left a dimple on the opposite side of the water pump (See pic below)




So to sum it up, do you guys think I have a case with the shop who did the replacement last year because of improper install?

SatinSilverAV6

iTrader: (2)

Yes you have a great case! That dealer sworn affidavit is worth its weight in gold! Good luck bro.

Even though the dealer is more expensive than other shops I still like them because they stand behind this kind of crap. This would never have happened in the 1st place at a honda dealer.

pits200

I like doing most of my own work on my cars but this would have just been too time consuming for me so I took it to a "reputable" shop that only works on Hondas/Acuras. So I felt confident that the work was being done right.

S A CHO

Holy shit

There isn't any better evidence than that...

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Being that you have a 6+ page topic in the CL forum, Car Talk is for cars not covered by one of our model specific forums, and we do not allow cross-posting of topics in multiple forums, we are going to have to close this.

To get more views for your topic in the CL forum I will not delete this, instead just close it and add the link, and if anyone from Car Talk wishes to chime in, they can do so in your active topic

https://acurazine.com/forums/2g-cl-problems-fixes-70/timing-belt-broke-while-driving-754219/