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hey all-
was hoping to get some thoughts on this…
my wife’s honda had the timing belt done a couple of months ago by a mechanic down the street. we like the guy but think he farmed out the job to someone else….not sure if that matters here.
anyway, ever since she has had the car back she insists it sounds and, to a lesser degree, behaves differently. it is more…bass-y right under the dash. low end sound, almost like an exhaust sound. you get it mostly around 40 mph when you let off the gas, there is a quick, throaty drop that follows. also, sometimes there is all kinds of rattling in the dash (AC vent area above the radio), which stops the second you press on it with your hand.
we’ve taken the car back a couple times because it bugs her, but the kicker is…it’s not pronounced enough! the mechanics cannot really hear anything obvious so they do not know what they are looking for. it mustn’t be bad enough to tear into it, and yet, she hears the difference everyday. so while the car technically runs fine, it sounds worse than pre-timing belt switch.does changing a timing belt create a result like this sometimes?
what recourse is there? what can be done if the mechanics, who i personally like and believe, cannot tell the difference because they never drove it before this?thanks.
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It’s hard to describe noise issues. Is there a way you can make a video of it? Is it such that it won’t show up on a video? If you have a friend that has a similar vehicle, maybe have her drive it and see if she notices the same noise. I would think that maybe after having some major work done, she is looking for problems? I’m saying alot of maybes here… Do you notice anything different? I’m not trying to cast doubt on your wife, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes there really isn’t anything to be done if there isn’t a real issue. That make sense?
As far as the noise itself, I can’t think of a reason changing the timing belt would cause an exhaust noise unless the timing belt was installed maybe a tooth off, but you would probably hear more of a backfire or something from the tailpipe if anything at all, and you would notice performance issues. Sorry I ran in circles to tell you not much.
thanks for the reply…
no, you aren’t confusing at all….because this is definitely a weird issue that could be mostly about perception. i myself do notice little bit of difference with the car, so i don’t think she is nuts, but to someone who hasn’t driven it for a decade, like a mechanic, it might not sound bad at all…. perhaps i will try to get video and post it here. in the meantime, i am hoping she can just live with it!i was just wondering what common side effects of changing the timing belt would be and see if this matched one of those.
could end up being an exhaust sound that just happened by coincidence around the time of the timing belt work…..
anything’s possible.Maybe you can pin point the noise inside the car and just take a look around and carefully inspect the inside. Also maybe you can check around the engine and see if anything is loose and around the wheels/tires to check if anything is loose. Also if you can find an auto stethoscope, that might help you pin point these noises.
[quote=”mckrishes” post=31218]Maybe you can pin point the noise inside the car and just take a look around and carefully inspect the inside. Also maybe you can check around the engine and see if anything is loose and around the wheels/tires to check if anything is loose. Also if you can find an auto stethoscope, that might help you pin point these noises.[/quote]
ooh…i like the stethoscope idea…i actually have one of those. the only problem is that it happens while in drive so i better strap myself underneath with my belt CAPE FEAR style!I’ve actually seen this before and it’s likely that the timing is off a tooth. You might be able to see where they might have adjusted the distributor to get it in time to try and correct for this issue. I would bet good money that if you removed the valve cover and upper timing cover you would discover that it’s not in time. As for the distributor look at the mounting bolts, if you see shiny spots they probably moved it to get it to run.
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