Timing Chain

[james250]

Just watched watchdog about BMW engines with timing chain failures causing engine failure. So thought i'd go through my service book to see if anything maintenance related is mentioned. There doesnt seem to be any mention about checking or inspecting the chain. Just wondering if the timing chain needs to be inspected as part of the maintenance schedule?

[Shepherd]

Hi James250, I don't recall any failures due to timing chain being discussed here on the forum. If there is any problem it might be rare. I dont even know how would one go about inspecting them. Don't you have to drop the engine to stuff like that?

I know this is not relevant but my 2000 reg corolla had timing chain and there was no mention of inspection in the book for it as well.

[normski2]

Never heard of a timing chain issue with Lexus. Don't think think BMW saga is owt for you to worry about.

[ColinBarber]

the chain isn't expected to be replaced at a set interval and should last a lot longer than 100k miles. If wear occurs then this is normally detected by increased engine noise and so hopefully is discovered and corrected long before it could cause a breakdown situation.

Reliability of German engines holds true for a timing chain as well as for the rest of the engine ;) Plenty of problems with tensioners and guides wearing, excess noise, chains jumping and some snapping. Not heard of these issues with Toyota engines although to be fair it has really only been the last 8 or so years since they made a big switch over to chains from belts on the new engine designs so we could see more issues as these engines get more miles on them.

The biggest issue with a chain over a belt is if they do fail then they tend to do a lot more damage, not damage to pistons/valves with an interference engine as this would be the same for a chain or belt driven engine, but from a kinetic energy point of view with the chain itself smashing into things.