My timing belt broke while driving how do I know if it damaged my engin?
Your vehicle has an interference engine therefore likely engine damage has occurred.
Cheapest way to tell, bore scope, more expensive, pull the cylinder head.
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Welcome to Car Talk Forums CC. hmm … when timing belt breaks, that could cause one of these to occur
- piston hits valve, damages piston &/or valve
- valve hits valve , damaging one or both of the valves.
To know for sure your shop would have to be able to see the valves and the pistons, which is best done by removing cylinder head. Sometimes can see pretty good in there w/out remove CH using a special optical instrument called a bore-scope. One option short of all that is for shop to simply install a new timing belt and cross fingers, may get lucky. Turn the engine by hand while watching what is happening under the valve cover. If nothing adverse noted, and engine turns freely, next step would be to measure the cylinder compression. If that’s ok, pretty good chance the engine will run as before.
Best chance of being lucky if timing belt broke when starting engine. If while driving of freeway, not as good of chance. But anything’s possible.
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