HELP--very expensive estimate on car overheat

HATAZCAT

MEMBER
TOYOTA PICKUP

I have a 94 toyota pick up with 260,000 miles on it. It is a 4 cylinder. Okay. So I got an estimate of 2300$ I was told my timing chain wore a hole in the timing cover, my radiator had a crack in it, the water pump was leaking and I had a blown head gasket. The guy told me the timing chain scenarioo probably caused coolant to leave the radiator which made it hot and it cracked/split, thus the rest of the car got hot and blew the had gasket. Is it possible taht I was driving around and there were NO problems what soever and then all of a sudden all this stuff?

Can someone PLEASE explain to me how all these things work together in conjunction to effect the other components that have failed. I want to make a judgement about whether my truck is worth saving or not. Is what the mechanic told me probably accurate?

1 Reply

SERVICE WRITER

MECHANIC
9,123 POSTS

Hi Heather,

Withour seeing the truck I am going to assume that the time cover must have a coolant port that allowed the coolant to leak out, or maybe the water pump was the original leak...Hard to say. I don't know if the the timing chain cover has anything to do with the problem, but it should have been making a fairly loud sound as it has been grinding away at the cover.

So setting the timing cover aside, I would think you must have had an overheating sttuation. When the coolant level goes low (water pump leak), the engine is no longer being cooled adequetley. Thpically the head gasket or cylinder head will become damaged and can set up a scenario where the coolant enters the combustion chamber or the compressed air from the combustion chamber starts to over pressureize the cooling system. The radiator can't handle the pressure and it becomes an escape valve by blowing open.

It can be a quick thing depending on how bad the original leak happened, a water pump bearing can fail and lose coolant VERY rapidly.

https://www.2carpros.com/car_articles/buy_repair.htm