About the car:
- Year - 2006
- Make - Saturn
- Model - Vue
- Engine - 3.5 Liter 6 Cylinder
Initial Problem - Customer had vehicle towed in from another facility. Vehicle was not starting.
Diagnosis & Recommendation - The engine originally sounded as if it had no compression. We verified that and advised the customer to remove the timing cover to check to see if the timing chain had skipped. After authorization from the customer we removed the timing cover and verified that the timing chain had indeed skipped. We originally revomed the chain and realigned it according to the manufacturer timing marks. After performing that task, we had check for compression again, and found that the vehicle compression was still too low. It was likely that valve damage occured when the chain skipped. We removed the cylinder heads after customer authorization and verified that there were bent valves and the heads needed to be checked by a machine shop to ensure no other damamge had occured.
Outcome - After removing the cylinder heads we took them to a local machine shop to have them checked for internal leaks, thoroughly cleaned and valve replacement. Upon removing and reinstalling the cylinder heads there are a host of other items that need to be replaced, among them: cylinder head bolts, cylinder head gasket, timing chain, timing tensioner, timing guides, valve cover gaskets, intake manifold gaskets, and exhaust manifold gaskets just to mention the major items. Upon completion we advised the customer to stick to a 4,000 mile oil change interval.
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