jolifrijoles
New member
1997 toyota corolla 1.8L with 190k miles was making a clunking sound that its owner ignored for two days before taking to a garage. The garage told us that the harmonic balancer/damper bolt was stripped and could be removed by hand and that we'd need a new crankshaft and may as well get a new engine. Um, can we start with trying a new bolt, I asked? We got the bolt and sure enough it fit and the crankshaft threads were fine. So the guy at the garage went to pull the car around to the bay so he could put it on the lift and put the new bolt in fully with a torque wrench, but when he did, he drove it without the old bolt in place. He didn't drive more than maybe 5 mph, but after he went over a speed bump in the lot, the car came to a stop and made AWFUL sounds when he tried to re-start it. Now they're saying the timing has slipped and we need a new timing belt along with the damper. My question is: did his driving, even at slow speeds, without the bolt in place cause this "new" issue? Seems like too much of a coincidence but i want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Also, he did a compression test and the result was 85psi on all 4 cylinders. 142psi is the low end of normal. I'm just trying to figure out if it's worth fixing for $650, and if the garage caused more damage by driving over the bump without the damper bolt in place. It was starting fine before that; it was just maing that clunking sound from the loose bolt. Thanks!