Did our Fabia 1.2 clutch replacers cause the engine timing to go out?

[sepulchrave]

It's very simple, they don't understand how the work they did could have caused the timing to jump. They're just too dumb to articulate it properly.

In my opinion you don't stand a chance of winning this case, you'd have to prove they were negligent which is frankly impossible.

What has happened is unfortunate but it is almost certainly a coincidence. I don't believe it's the garages fault and you're going to be hard pressed to find an independent expert who will testify otherwise.

The timing chain was obviously shot and needed doing before the car went in for a clutch, if it hadn't jumped while in their care it would have done it to you or whoever else used it next.

Sorry this isn't what you wanted to hear but it's the best advice I can give you.

[Damo152003]

Im not 100%sure on this engine but most timing chain tensioner cant retract unless you press in the plunger as it has a locking device built in them. Usually a2-3mm pin has to be inserted in the tensioner to reset, retract it. 

Ive turned engines anticlock for various reasons and never had an issue.

id imagine like mentioned its coincidence.

 

[Breezy_Pete]

There's no such ratchet  on these.

 

[J.R.]

I am quoting a couple of lines from the myriad that you have written because as you said then, "in a nutshell" it describes what you are hoping to achieve.

 

In a nutshell, the subject line is what we need answers to to be 
confident that the Mr Clutch franchise we employed to change the clutch 
were in fact responsible for failing to prevent a known hazard

 

You do not know nor can you prove when the timing jumped, even if it jumped when they drove it into their workshop it would not be their responsability, if it jumped after you collected the car then they cannot possibly be responsable for failing to prevent this "known hazard" from occurring.

 

Also if you do take action I would choose a different term to use than "known hazard", they can not have known whether you had already had the defective chain tensioner replaced, you had that knowledge and delivered a car to them with a "known hazard"

[NeilTM]

I realized that my own brother who used to in his own words "design the
components and systems that go into a vehicle", his specialism being the
electronics and programming side, might have the answers I was seeking as
to whether battery disconnection could extinguish the EML even if the
codes persisted, and he has come up trumps and with a lovely bonus that he
feels proves how the jump occurred.  This is what he wrote:

 

"Having worked
with the VW-Audi group, I can assure you that the standard functionality
required of any ECU on their vehicles requires DTCs to be held in
non-volatile EEPROM or 'E-squared' as it is often called.  This requirement is, to the best of my
knowledge, industry-wide and has been so for over 20 years now, so the Mr
Clutch people really should know better! The Engine Management light is
then controlled by the instrument panel after it is signalled to do so
over the CAN bus (the instrument panel does not have to 'remember' the
status of the light itself.)"

 

EEPROM: Electrically Eraseable Programmable Read Only Memory

 

I still wasn't entirely sure that what applied to the codes also invariably applied to the presence of the EML but he assures me that in these circumstances - of a permanent fault such as the timing chain jump it does:

 

"A fault such as
a 20° timing chain jump is not intermittent, so once detected by the
engine ECU, would be permanent. The EML would be on continuously - end of
story. Intermittent faults are recorded with DTCs that are flagged as
intermittent and an incidence count is maintained for those faults and the
EML could come and go or take some time before it is lit - but this fault
isn't and cannot be intermittent, so that cannot apply here."

 

He further stated:

 

"I know there was a requirement, (in the specs the car manufacturer gives to the developers),  to remember DTCs through power
cycles and that includes units that were not supplied with a permanent
battery live. (that's the Fabia as Wino pointed out)  The only practical way to do this is to store them in some
form of non-volatile memory, so that is what is routinely done. To the
best of my knowledge this has been a requirement in every car
manufacturer's specs on this planet for over 20 years."

 

I really hope anyone and everyone struggling with being mislead over the permanence or transience of codes and EMLs can find their way to read this as it lays a lot of myths to rest and introduces certainty into a picture where ignorance may otherwise be exploited.

 

So I now have categorical proof that their account could not have happened as they said.  Either they lied about the EML being on before work commenced, or they lied about how it came to be off after the work, as the only way it could not have remained on was if they deleted the codes,  either of which is a serious untruth amounting to deliberate fraud designed to evade any responsibility for this event and put it entirely on the customer.

 

But it gets even better, (or worse for them) if you ask what type of event is necessary to cause a timing chain to jump, such that the direction of the error, as in this case is towards the timing becoming ADVANCED?

 

My brother again:

 

"the direction in which the 20° jump has happened:
Given that the motive force for such a slip can only come from the
crankshaft, the camshaft being the load, so if the valve timing is now
20° advanced, that proves it can only have happened by turning the engine
backwards and how would have that happened (in this instance) other than during clutch
replacement?"

 

I had to sit down with pen and paper to visualise this, whereas a child's toy set of sprockets and chains might have helped considerably to model this, but he is right, the crankshaft has to end ahead of the game with the camshaft, with the motive force being engine rotating clockwise, and vice versa if moving counter clockwise by the same principle. Remember the camshaft is a significant load, it is constantly opening and closing valves against strong springs, so it is a significant  resistive force opposing the crankshaft turning it.  With the crankshaft jumping ahead of the camshaft through the slackness of the chain, the camshaft becomes behind in sequence to the crankshaft, ie its valve work is RETARDED.  But if the motive force of the crankshaft is counterclockwise, the engine being turned backwards, the same principle determines that the jump will occur in the opposite direction, and ADVANCE the timing.   The timing on our car is now ADVANCED, therefore the jump was produced by the engine being turned backwards.  And how can that happen?  By turning it backwards during clutch replacement work!  And we don't think it is possible to visualise a scenario where a broken clutch release mechanism can cause the engine to move backwards as they now claim.

 

Are we wrong?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sepulchrave]

No, but it doesn't make any difference.

 

The issue has not been caused by their negligence but by the poor mechanical condition of the camshaft drive system when the vehicle was entrusted to them for unrelated repairs.

 

This is not a question of right and wrong, it's a question of fairness and proportionality.

[Breezy_Pete]

1 hour ago, NeilTM said:

Are we wrong?

 

I don't think so, although the first time I tried to visualise it I got it wrong.

 

Other than the actual pressure plate bolts (6-off M7) being done up without counterholding of the flywheel, another possibility, I guess, is if they left the car in gear whilst undoing or refitting the driveshafts.

If (for example) they removed the nearside one completely (rather than just the inner end), for more working space, and the car was in gear later when they did the hub nut up again with the engine 'counterholding' I guess that could do it, As could the (6) inner driveshaft bolts as they take a fair bit of doing up if you follow Skoda's latest recipe (20Nm plus 180°). Is there a list of parts used on the invoice? Both of those mentioned are 'renew' items. 

 

I suppose you could ask whether they had a gear engaged at any time during the proceedings, and if so at which time(s)? Not sure what sort of answer you'd get.

 

Did you ask about the flywheel counterhold tool I mentioned way back? If so, what did they say?

 

I fear this could all be a frustrating and lengthy quest for you and your daughter, if I'm honest.

Your tenacity and willingness to learn about the technical details is admirable, but I think even if you succeed in getting Mr Clutch to pay for timing chain replacement, it may end up something of a pyrrhic victory in terms of the effort and stress and time involved in getting there.

 

 

Edited 15 December, 2019 by Wino

[NeilTM]

20 minutes ago, Wino said:

 

I don't think so, although the first time I tried to visualise it I got it wrong.

 

Other than the actual pressure plate bolts (6-off M7) being done up without counterholding of the flywheel, another possibility, I guess, is if they left the car in gear whilst undoing or refitting the driveshafts.

If (for example) they removed the nearside one completely (rather than just the inner end), for more working space, and the car was in gear later when they did the hub nut up again with the engine 'counterholding' I guess that could do it, As could the (6) inner driveshaft bolts as they take a fair bit of doing up if you follow Skoda's latest recipe (20Nm plus 180°). Is there a list of parts used on the invoice? Both of those mentioned are 'renew' items. 

 

I suppose you could ask whether they had a gear engaged at any time during the proceedings, and if so at which time(s)? Not sure what sort of answer you'd get.

 

Did you ask about the flywheel counterhold tool I mentioned way back? If so, what did they say?

 

I fear this could all be a frustrating and lengthy quest for you and your daughter, if I'm honest.

Your tenacity and willingness to learn about the technical details is admirable, but I think even if you succeed in getting Mr Clutch to pay for timing chain replacement, it may end up something of a pyrrhic victory in terms of the effort and stress and time involved in getting there.

 

 

 

Thanks Wino, and others above.  IF the only way the timing could jump in the direction of ADVANCE is by backward rotation, I don't see that it matters to establish at precisely what point or in what way this happened during the clutch work, and we already have demonstrated that getting honesty out of them is unlikely, so your questions would just get us hopelessly bogged down in fresh opportunity for their further obfuscation, without doing anything to reinforce the central point which I now made that the engine must have been rotated backwards for the TC to end up where it has, and their vague woolly account of how that could have happened as due to the severity of the clutch failure which they are simply egging for dramatic effect, and I am countering by demanding they get specific about how a broken clutch can turn an engine backwards as I don't see how it could.

 

You are quite right about the effort and stress to get them to pay for this repair, but its already been largely  expended, I've proved my case I think such that a court would accept my explanation and proofs over their vaguenesses and provably false narratives.  The only way I could have avoided it would have been to accept being lied to and robbed from the outset, so I'm choosing my own source of misery since this way there is at least a chance that I might force them to take responsibility, if only for culpably failing to notify us of an additional engine running fault they are now claiming they were aware of before they did the clutch.  This should get them their RAC accreditation taken off them as had they informed us, in accordance with those RAC standards as they should, of additional issues we would have investigated them, or had them investigate them first, and made a decision to scrap the car at that point as it would not have seemed worth spending a total of £618 with them on two major jobs on a  car of this age, mileage and market value.  We were entitled to the full picture they claim they knew existed to be fully discovered before doing only one of the jobs presenting themselves at that point, which makes no sense to ignore, but of which we were unaware.  Instead, we got lied to in one of the two ways I have outlined, which itself is strongly suggestive of trying to cover up a mistake they made which triggered the TC jump.  And there is seemingly no other contender now for the jump than the clutch work.

 

I shall send an already completed draft reply to their brush off email to them now, so that it is waiting for them first thing Mon am inviting them to reconsider undertaking the full kit replacement TC & T without charge in another of their workshops,  in light of me busting them basically, giving them until one working day before the appointment I shall be making to get the work done by our trusted local VAG independent, after which they will get the full bill, and I will take legal action if it isn't paid.

 

 

 

 

[J.R.]

46 minutes ago, NeilTM said:

 

I've proved my case I think such that a court would accept my explanation and proofs over their vaguenesses and provably false narratives. 

 

I wouldn't put my money on that, your choice but rather you than me.

46 minutes ago, NeilTM said:

 

I shall send an already completed draft reply to their brush off email to them now, so that it is waiting for them first thing Mon am inviting them to reconsider undertaking the full kit replacement TC & T without charge in another of their workshops,  in light of me busting them basically, giving them until one working day before the appointment I shall be making to get the work done by our trusted local VAG independent, after which they will get the full bill, and I will take legal action if it isn't paid.

 

 

 

I very much doubt that your threats will even register on their radar let alone be taken seriously but at least you will have taken a positive step and had fixed the known fault in your car.

 

Monday morning will be their busiest time, it will probably take them one working day to read your E-mail if they do at all.

 

Good luck though, if you get a result I can add it to the tale of VAG fitting a brand new engine F.O.C. on a 10 year old car because of an alleged failed auxiliary drive belt.

[NeilTM]

2 hours ago, J.R. said:

I very much doubt that your threats will even register on their radar let alone be taken seriously but at least you will have taken a positive step and had fixed the known fault in your car.

 

You could well be right, but as my brother pointed out "With the defendant judging the case, I think the verdict is inevitable. I
guess that's why we need courts."  They don't teach logic in schools for a reason.  While my logic might defeat Mr Clutch to understand it, the courts are a different prospect.

[NeilTM]

2 hours ago, J.R. said:

Good luck though, if you get a result I can add it to the tale of VAG fitting a brand new engine F.O.C. on a 10 year old car because of an alleged failed auxiliary drive belt.

 

Now that sounds like a tale worth repeating!?  Reminds me that when I took my 16yo Fiat Doblo with 150,000 miles on the clock in to a so far very impressive independent Fiat specialist, he pointed out to me that my aux belt was original!  And sure enough this otherwise meticulously dealer serviced, single owner vehicle had not had this changed for the  simple reason it never appeared on any service schedule to change it!  Tell me VW made the same omission and that is why its failure to specify its change resulted in the demise of the engine?

[Breezy_Pete]

10 hours ago, NeilTM said:

the engine must have been rotated backwards for the TC to end up where it has

 

OK, granted, but have you found anything official to say that this must not be done? That might be a sticking point for your case.

It may be a 'known risk' on the internet forums, but unless it's something that the manufacturer has warned against, it may not stand up in court as a reason for Mr Clutch to be liable.

 

There may well exist such official warnings, but I can't personally remember having seen such.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NeilTM]

42 minutes ago, Wino said:

 

OK, granted, but have you found anything official to say that this must not be done? That might be a sticking point for your case.

It may be a 'known risk' on the internet forums, but unless it's something that the manufacturer has warned against, it may not stand up in court as a reason for Mr Clutch to be liable.

 

There may well exist such official warnings, but I can't personally remember having seen such.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Wino, I do appreciate everyone trying to watch my reckless back, LOL

 

Nothing 'official' as such as yet, but if I have to find something then I will, if it is only the testimony of experienced mechanics undertaking this work, and here is an example of that I found online,  

http://www.bba-reman.com/forums/Topic108918.aspx?PageIndex=2 where the respondent informing of this backward rotation  situation, and others in that thread reveal they are professional mechanics.  I know that my local VAG independent would be happy to write testimony to the fact that this happens, and probably be prepared to share their procedure for ensuring that it doesn't, and even the mechanic who replaced the clutch did not contest that this could happen when I put it to him, nor their head office, only that he  would not have made this error. 

 

 

Edited 16 December, 2019 by NeilTM
forgot to insert URL

[rum4mo]

To take this any further than just a sensible chat with your clutch place, would need more evidence of this being 99.9% down to some action carried out by your clutch place, time to reflect and get it sorted out by a proper garage.

 

The similarity of this type of supposed error and VW etc missing out an aux belt replacement period just does not work, very few car makers say when to change an aux belt, that is up to observations made by any garage servicing a car - most of which would replace that belt if it needed too get removed to carry out other work and the car was over 4,5,6 etc years old.

[J.R.]

8 hours ago, NeilTM said:

 

Now that sounds like a tale worth repeating!?   Tell me VW made the same omission and that is why its failure to specify its change resulted in the demise of the engine?

 

Oh it was a tale alright!

 

You will find it on this forum, the person supposedly took the path that you are proposing and eventually reported a fairy tale ending.

 

For some, dreams really do come true.

[sepulchrave]

Try and remember that lying is endemic in the motor trade, they lie even when they don't need to. That they've lied to you is proof of nothing I'm afraid, the onus will be on you to prove that they've acted negligently.

[Breezy_Pete]

8 hours ago, NeilTM said:

Now that sounds like a tale worth repeating!?

I think it's this one, not sure why the OP is now not on the forum:

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/471211-alternator-belt-breaks-at-60-odd-mph-woes/

 

Not particularly relevant, but just goes to show what can be achieved by sticking to ones guns.

[NeilTM]

1 hour ago, Wino said:

I think it's this one, not sure why the OP is now not on the forum:

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/471211-alternator-belt-breaks-at-60-odd-mph-woes/

 

Not particularly relevant, but just goes to show what can be achieved by sticking to ones guns.

 

Indeed, a fascinating tale, also containing a little pearl of information about where  to find VW tech info:

 

https://erwin.volkswagen.de/erwin/showHome.do

 

Private individuals can subscribe.  Minimum subscription is for one hour access, so an expensive sounding pearl hire business. (the online info becomes inaccessible when the hire period expires)

 

Anyone here already have access who could tell me if ErWin might have clutch replacement procedure information that might contain a warning about not allowing the engine to rotate backwards?  late 2005 Fabia 1.2 BME engine.

[Breezy_Pete]

As you've probably worked out by now there are sister sites for the other VW group entities like Skoda. 

I find it very cheap, with a decent broadband connection you can download more pdf files of information than you can shake a stick at in a single hour. 

 

 

[sepulchrave]

It is not possible to prevent an engine rotating backwards, it's what happens when you crank the engine on the starter and it fails to catch, the compression from the non firing cylinder acts like a spring pushing the crank back the way it came, it also happens almost every time you switch the engine off, it is the default failure mode for the timing on these engines once the chain gets really slack.

 

Micturition into a headwind commonly results in wet shoes.

[NeilTM]

2 hours ago, sepulchrave said:

It is not possible to prevent an engine rotating backwards, it's what happens when you crank the engine on the starter and it fails to catch, the compression from the non firing cylinder acts like a spring pushing the crank back the way it came, it also happens almost every time you switch the engine off, it is the default failure mode for the timing on these engines once the chain gets really slack.

 

Yes, I think I made this point myself.  But clearly it must be a question of the degree of backward turn, if these routine events, at least every time an engine is stopped do not in fact result in a jump, then a clutch replacement does the trick.  It seems perfectly possible that had the clutch needed replacing 30,000 miles ago, that this jump might have occurred during clutch replacement then, and by the same token that it might not have occurred for another 30,000 from now, if the clutch work was done then. Nobody has that crystal ball, and such speculation is unprovable and irrelevant. I seem to recall a similar issue with some alternators not liking to be turned backwards, but again that presumably refers to being turned back more than the little rock produced by cylinder compression being lost that way as you describe.

 

Mr Clutch read my final much stronger reply to their brush off sent late last night and they replied early this morning saying that they were giving this to the local area manager to look at and get back to me asap, so hopefully they might be starting to take this seriously.

 

 

[J.R.]

This takes me back to when I moonlighted as a mechanic/welder/sprayer/expert bodger to put myself through college.

 

I recieved an angry phone call from a guy saying that I had serviced his car 3 months ago and now he finds that his daughter is pregnant 🙁

 

Unlike this tale he did actually have a point but his delivery had me laughing my socks off, I should have told him that it was a known failure with that model!

[sepulchrave]

The counterhold tool mentioned is simply a convenience for loosening and tightening the clutch diaphragm retaining screws because it's not easy to lock the bottom end by any means to accomplish this, I have a home made tool that does the same job, it's a generic tool for jamming the ring gear which has to be flipped round for tightening.

[Breezy_Pete]

2 hours ago, NeilTM said:

clearly it must be a question of the degree of backward turn

 

I think it may be more to do with a sustained push, at a time when there is no oil pressure in the system.  I've been looking at a cutdown I did on a tensioner that a member on here kindly sent to me several years ago. 

It has a lot of similarities with a tappet/hydraulic lifter.  I'll post up the pics later or tomorrow, after I've checked a couple of other details about its orientation when installed and one other thing.  In the same way that an oil filled tappet can't be squeezed quickly and easily (by design) but a slow sustained firm squeeze can push oil out of it, I think that is the mechanism by which reverse rotation (and hold against a valve spring resistance) can empty the tensioner of oil and make it susceptible to giving an inadequate reaction to 'push' at the next start. 

[NeilTM]

57 minutes ago, Wino said:

 

I think it may be more to do with a sustained push, at a time when there is no oil pressure in the system.  I've been looking at a cutdown I did on a tensioner that a member on here kindly sent to me several years ago. 

It has a lot of similarities with a tappet/hydraulic lifter.  I'll post up the pics later or tomorrow, after I've checked a couple of other details about its orientation when installed and one other thing.  In the same way that an oil filled tappet can't be squeezed quickly and easily (by design) but a slow sustained firm squeeze can push oil out of it, I think that is the mechanism by which reverse rotation (and hold against a valve spring resistance) can empty the tensioner of oil and make it susceptible to giving an inadequate reaction to 'push' at the next start. 

 

Gosh, yes, I hadn't appreciated that the tensioner was oil pressure activated, as opposed to a spring, but that makes perfect sense as a damped, essentially hydraulic mechanism you would want it to be, and a spring would not deliver.

 

What this also surely points to is that a timing chain jump in normal use is far more likely, perhaps even only possible at start up, when the functioning of the tensioner has not yet been fed the oil under pressure it relies on to function properly, or as you say a sustained push may have evacuated it.  A momentary rock backwards on stopping the engine would have no effect as the device would be fully primed, even if worn, but may perhaps then evacuate it, setting it up for potential failure to take up the chain slack at next start up just as you say.

 

But then the all important Q is in what direction would the jump occur, and the answer surely has to be that if the engine is cranked on the starter and fires and runs normally, throwing out the starter dog as it revs up, then the only possible direction of jump in that sequence is to get ahead on the chain, and any jump occuring will therefore retard the ignition.  If the starting sequence is interrupted or fails, and the engine doesn't fire and run normally, then the engine MAY be permitted to run back a little way.  It may run back a lot I suppose if there is the sort of kick back as could be experienced with a starting handle, where if you had your thumb wrapped round the handle and it kicked back, where the firing before TDC pushed the engine violently backwards, you could break your thumb as opposed to the handle flying out of your hand.  A good question might be to ask whether such events are still possible with computer controlled spark and fuel injections though, I don't know.

 

So maybe the question as to whether backward rotation of the engine at a failed start up might be sufficient to permit the engine a backward rotation sufficient to provoke a jump in the direction of advancing the timing, still relies on a difference of degree of backward rotation between a slighter (at start up), or greater, and more sustained (during dismantling) turn backwards?  Hence my separate Q on this forum made in the hope of discovering if there was any consistency and in what direction the jump occurred when it happened at start up.

 

I know that that car has always started reliably as most modern cars usually do, so it seems unlikely that there would have been a fluffed or failed sequence when my son started the car to drive it the approx 3.5 miles to the garage.  But if it had jumped then it surely would not have run and idled normally enough, if at all, while the ECU learned new settings for idle and running, as my other daughter's fiesta had to do only the other day when it lost its VRAM running settings, and I sat and ran it to normal temp from cold, then left it alone for an hour or so before it would finally fast idle, before settling back down to normal on a short run.  If this is so then this might provide additional reasons to those already stated why the jump did not occur before the car arrived at Mr Clutch as such running would have been inescapably memorable.  The other stretch on that scenario would be to have to ask if it could really take as much as 8 or 9 miles for the ECU to suss the 20degree jump and put on the EML. But 5 to 6 miles at least it must have taken, so........?

 

They now want to say that the broken clutch caused the jump, so I asked them 'how precisely'.  At most the partially disengaging dragging clutch, which was insufficient to 'creep' the car forward at all, would simply add to the load on the crankshaft pulley, but unlike a piston under compression or the spring tension from the valve springs would not of itself provide any backwards impetus surely?  Maybe even act as a damper on such movement?