Last week, a caller who had given his Miata some sort of nickname called in and asked what sort of fluid changes he should do with it. I was struck that neither Tom nor Ray mentioned the timing thingy.
It surprised me that none of the “oldtimers” or “seasoned mechanics” on this board took them to task for failing to bring it up. To their credit, they did mention tires.
I’ve had eight cars that I can remember that broke 100K miles, and none of them had a timing thingy replaced. Although I rub mine down with EVOO on a monthly basis, I’m astonished by this silence on the part of people who are normally sticklers about the timing thingy.
Perhaps there are two dirty little secrets here: the timing thingy doesn’t fail that often, and cars that just go kerflooey rather than simply stop running when the timing thingy goes have, wait for it…
a design flaw?
If one part failing can blow the engine, that’s a design flaw.