Mark: Hi, it's Mark Bossert. I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC Canada, Vancouver's best auto service experience, dozens of times voted by their customers as the best auto repair in Vancouver. And we're talking cars. How you doing Bernie?
Bernie: Doing very well.
Mark: So today's guest is a 2013 Range Rover. What was happening with this vehicle?
Bernie: So this vehicle was towed to our shop. The engine wouldn't run. It was making some pretty bad noises. We proceeded to do a diagnostic on it which we determined pretty quickly the engine was done. But nonetheless, we go through the procedure. We scan the vehicle, had a wrap sheet of codes, big long list of codes for crank correlation, engine misfires, a number of other items, not worth talking about. There's so many. But the key note of course, is when we went to crank the engine over, it cranked over in a rather odd manner. Made a lot of clacking noises and attempted to start, but never start. So we knew the engine was bad. Suspected the timing chain had probably skipped teeth or broken damage the valve. Pistons and valves collide at that point and the engine's terminally ill. Deceased actually.
Mark: Yeah. We've talked about Range Rovers and timing chains a fair amount. This is a fairly common problem?
Bernie: Yeah, timing chain problems are common on these engines and you know, the owner had not obviously, heeded the rattling noises that were present in the engine at some point. Because the timing chain, it'll always start off with a rattling sound. Sometimes it'll just be a little rattling. You start the car up when it's cold, you know, if it does that and then goes away after a second, you can kind of monitor it. But if it starts getting more consistent, it's time to replace it. This person left it to the end.
Mark: Yeah. And the bit difference in bill is many tens of thousands of dollars.
Bernie: Yeah. I never like to talk about prices. Because you know, if you watch this video in five years, the prices will probably be higher. But it's a difference of probably 14, $15,000 thousand dollars.
Mark: In 2025 dollars.
Bernie: To replace the engine versus doing the timing chain.
Here's our beautiful Range Rover Autobiography model too. So it's top of the line. Very fine vehicle.
Mark: Looks in pretty good shape for 2013. That's 11 years old. And oh, oh, what's happening here?
Bernie: Yeah, so in order to replace the engine, you have to remove the body of the vehicle off of the frame. So this is like a pickup truck. It's a full framed vehicle and the body can be removed. It's a fair bit of work to take the body off. But once it's done, then the engine replacement is actually somewhat simple. It can get in there with the engine crane and work on things and it's like having the engine on a stand. So it's pretty good.
So, of course the old engine, we dismantled some things to have a look at what was inside. And here we have a view of one of the timing chains, which is right off of the guide rail.
Mark: It should be over here. It's over here.
Bernie: Yeah. It should be over there. And the guide.
Mark: The guide is gone.
Bernie: Yeah. The actual plastic pieces that the chain rides against were gone. Found inside the engine.
Mark: Busted.
Bernie: Yeah, busted apart. It's hard to know whether that all happened in one thing or whether, you know, probably a couple pieces broke off and then it just got worse. We removed one cylinder head on the cylinder where the chain had basically jumped off its gears. Which would indicate of course, where the pistons and valves hit. This is what happens when the timing chain goes out of whack.
These valves, the exhaust valves are no, sorry, the intakes are on the top. The exhausts are on the bottom, but you can see all the valves are bent.
Mark: They should be closer. This one is still even a little bit bent. They're very tight when they come out, the spring pushes them tight in, correct?
Bernie: Yeah. And so the one on the right bottom corner is actually, it's probably bent because you can see a scuff mark on the bottom here. But it looks like a valve would normally sit, but the other ones, they won't seat properly.
Mark: There shouldn't be shade.
Bernie: There should not be shade. That's right. You should not see that.
Mark: Then when we look at the pistons, oh, that's not good.
Bernie: Yeah. There's the top of the piston, you can see scuff marks in the edges of the piston. The piston is the black, that's the top of the piston, the black thing, scuff marks on everything. So they've been hit.
Mark: And so what happens when the valves and the pistons meet in this kind of case?
Bernie: What happens? Well, it's an interference motor. And what that means is that everything has to be timed perfectly because if things go out of time, the valves interfere with the movement of the pistons or vice versa. In a non interference motor, this kind of thing can occur and the pistons and valves won't hit each other because the clearances are too large. But, you know, most precision engines have tight clearances, so I would just count on any engine in any car being an interference motor.
Mark: So what are we looking at here?
Bernie: And here, we're looking at the engine. This is the replacement engine. We got a used engine for this vehicle and we actually put new timing guides, tensioners and everything in this vehicle. So it's a used engine, but you know, the important thing that fails, which is the timing chain has been replaced.
Mark: So there's timing chains that run to both cylinder banks.
Bernie: Two separate ones, two chains, two guides, or actually four guides. Two tensioners. Yeah. Basically two of everything.
Mark: Very complicated setup.
Bernie: It is very complicated. Yeah. And unfortunately, these chains are really, I'd say too small for this engine. They're dinky little chains. You know, it's not a robust setup for an engine that's 500 horsepower. They should be thicker chains. They're better than bicycle chains, but not a lot.
Mark: So this is a really, people don't necessarily consider it, but it's a very high performance engine in terms of it's moving this big vehicle at ridiculous speeds, honestly.
Bernie: Oh yeah. These things are fun to drive. I mean, you put the pedal down and they move fast, and anything supercharged is quick. And of course, a supercharge engine because of the speed of acceleration inside the engine is it's harder on the timing chains. The timing chains do fail on the non supercharged engines as well, but not as often as these do, because they're just under more of a load.
Mark: So you just changed the engine block and put whatever you could remove from the old engine onto the new engine.
Bernie: Yeah, exactly. We're basically replacing, it's called a long block, and a long block is the bottom end of the engine pistons, crankshaft, that assembly, as well as the cylinder heads. And when we get the used engine, I mean, it comes complete with the valve covers on the oil pan on and everything. And we might have actually installed it like that, but when they shipped it or stored it somewhere. They cracked one of the valve covers, which are made of plastic. So we had to swap those over and we always count on swapping things over. We swapped the supercharger. It actually had the supercharger on it too, but we found the existing one was in better shape than the used one. So we swapped that over. And we decided that while we had the valve covers off, to do the timing chain. It did cost a little extra money, but not a lot, while everything's apart.
Mark: And that guarantees with proper maintenance that this vehicle's gonna run for probably until the customer wants to say goodbye to the vehicle.
Bernie: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, in all fairness, it did last for 12 years with someone neglecting the timing chain. So had they taken care of the timing chain, you know the engine would've kept on going for a long time. The bottom end of the engine and the valve train is generally pretty good quality on these engines.
Mark: Bottom line, if you're looking for service for your Range Rover in Vancouver, the people to see are at Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them online at pawlikautomotive.com. You can book your appointment there. Or you can call them at (604) 327-7112 to book your appointment. You have to book ahead. They're always busy. Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC Canada. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thank you, Mark, and thanks for watching.
