wow. there’s a word for that kind of problem: Sux!

let’s see, that makes $1000 for last week’s repairs, plus estimated $300 for tomorrow’s tow from the Morgan Neck area on the shore to Catonsville, plus whatever the new repairs cost…because even though the meltdown occurred suspiciously soon after the ‘repairs’, what service dept is going to admit culpability even if it does belong to them? oh, and then there’s the rental car, too, which btw has got to be the worst car I’ve ever driven! the gas mileage is so low that i can actually watch the gas gauge drop as I drive (~20-22mpg) and the design is an ergonomic disaster.
oh, well. what’s a little more melting plastic whether it’s on the car or in payment for the car?

Were any of the idiot light the over-temperature warning? Sounds like coolant starvation. Bad water pump and/or no coolant in the system.

I say this because I had an almost identical experience a number of years back.

No, there was no indication of an over temp condition. This car as a real temp gauge, and it was normal. The only abnormal idiot light activity prior to the meltdown was the battery and brake lights were glowing very, very faintly. If it hadn’t been getting dark, I would never have seen them.

Hmmm.

Donna said something about having belts changed - think you threw one? I wonder what’s on the same belt as the water pump - alternator?

::tippy-typey::

Ayup - alternator and water pump are on the same belt on that engine. Bets are you blew the belt, or it wasn’t tensioned properly if you just had it changed. The backfiring was probably pre-detonation when the intake valve let fuel into a red-hot overheated cylinder. The only way you’re getting an orange-hot exhaust manifold is an engine overheat, which means either you’ve got no coolant or the pump’s not working. Would also explain the electrical system flakiness and the loss of battery charge. I dunno where the temp gauge sensor is on that car, but it’s odd that it didn’t register hot.

Bad news, though. This bad an overheat could burn piston rings, seize the engine, crack cylinder walls, warp the heads, blow the head gasket, blow the water pump seals…

All of the belts, which had just been replaced, seemed to be intact, and seemed properly tensioned.

What I believe happened was a timing belt failure — even though the timing belt had been replaced less than 35K miles ago, and had been inspected during the recent service. That’s where I believe something got goobered up.

All this is, of course, speculation. The car is now back at the shop (it made it back the middle of the afternoon), and the trouble is being investigated.

the service tech claims that the alternator went — i’ve never known an alternator to try to melt an exhaust manifold…

anyone out there with experience in this?

If the coolant still looks OK, then there’s the possibility that the exhaust manifold got hot because unburnt fuel (due to insufficient spark) was entering the hot manifold and igniting there. That would jive with G’s observation that the temp gauge didn’t seem to rise, but I’ve personally never seen that happen with a failed alternator. Typically, you’d lose lights and electrical function before the engine stopped firing.

we thought there should have been other signs prior to alternator failure, as well; however, we’re now in the situation that the service dept holds all the cards.
it’ll be $1800 to replace not only the alternator but also the exhaust manifold, as they said it was old and worn out, corrosion, &c and the overheat was the last straw for it…or so they claim.

Ummm… did you take the car back to the same service department that did the maintenance work? Sorta gives them free reign to cover their tracks.

Well, lessee, if they’re going to cover their tracks, and they’re really covering, then they’re not likely to charge us to cover up their ineptitude.

If they did screw up, and we had taken the car somewhere else, they’re certainly not going to take the hit on repairing someone else’s screw up and not charging me. The original service department is not going to want to pay out at retail to another service department. So, we’d then have to pay to have another service department tell us the first one screwed up, and then have to pay more to have the car moved yet again on a truck. More money out of pocket.

As it turns out, the failure of the alternator is not likely to be linked to the other work performed on the vehicle. It very like was just “its time,” and its failure was purely coincidental.

My question surrounds the exhaust manifold. old and worn out at 103K seems a little odd, maybe. The van has 170K on it, and the exhaust manifold seems to be fine (we’ll learn more about that next week when we get a new exhaust system put on it). I can see how the glowing orange bit could damage the manifold, though it surprises me that the O2 sensor (which threads into the manifold) didn’t get damaged in the process.

The biggest issue, however, is that the cost of the repairs is nearly equal to the trade-in value of the car. That, coupled with the money we’ve already spent, could have been a really nice down payment on a nicer new (or new-to-us) vehicle. If we repair this car, it’s money we’ll never, ever get back in a trade.

At this point, we’ve decided (I think) that our plan “A” is to try to get another car, and take what we can get for the dead one. Plan “B” will be to repair the dead rat.