I have a 2001 Subaru Forester which has 165K miles. I had the timing belt changed at 105K per maintenance recommendations. I had the car in for service recently for brake pads,etc and the dealer recommended replacing the drive belt for the AC… which I did. 100 miles after this service, the car broke down unexpectedly. The dealer told us the AC compressor seized up… and this caused the drive belt to get caught on it and be shreded … and with that, the sudden resistance from the drive belt on the crankshaft pulley caused the timing belt to slip out of sync and damage the interference design engine. Can that really happen? I surprised that this happened a few days after replacing a drive belt and wondered if somehow the service work done with the drive belt could have caused the problem. The dealer states the service work did not cause the problem. (The dealer has given me an repair estimate of $3000+ to put a 130K engine in with a 12 mo warranty- not what I wanted to hear.) Is my recent service and damaged engine a coincidence as the dealer said or are they related?
Replacing the drive belt should not have caused the compressor to seize, that would be coincidence. Now for the compressor causing the timing belt to be damaged, I don’t think so, but then what are the odds that the compressor and the timing belt fail at the same time?
Well, with 60k miles on the timing belt, it could have failed, however I don’t think there is any connection between the drive belt and the timing belt.
But possibly.
The engine is still pushing from the inside when all of a sudden everything stops on the outside.
It could happen.