WWDiesel wrote:
The poor souls who have had the unfortunate misfortune of experiencing a broken exhaust valve and the subquence damage encountered to the head and in some cases catastrophic damage to engine would probably strongly disagree with your statement.
I agree it is not of epidemic proportions as of yet, but if or when it does happen, it can get real expensive real fast and in a few rare occasions reported on this forum has been catastrophic in nature to the point of a total engine loss.
We still don't know what the root cause of the failures are; sure wish we did as it would facilitate making decisions on replacement of the valves so much easier.
Suspect is a bad batch of valves during the manufacturing process? Thus the recommendation to replace all exhaust valves if the head is removed for
any reason.
In the meantime, replacing the exhaust valves is like buying insurance hopefully against failure.
Gosh I hope and pray it never happens to mine....
Oh, I agree if you are taking the head off that valves are a good idea given the age/miles but I am just not as certain it's a "must do" with the second timing belt job. There is a calculation at the cost to maintain versus call it a day. With some decent preventive stuff (5w40, 4k OCI, EGR delete physical or tune, not overfilling oil which is super common as the dipstick is mismarked, Timing belt change at 80% of schedule, change glow plus from crap ceramics) getting 160,000-200,00 miles is likely for a good % of them. The head is well established as a weak part of the chain and if it goes on the low side of mile, worth the bill IMHO. We are lucky where we live that rust isn't an issue so mechanical stuff to fix makes sense longer, in most areas...not so much.
Once north of 200,000 the engine is only part of the equation on does it make sense.
Doing 2-4K in preventive maint./mods(depends on labor)when you have a 200k tranny, transfer case, rear end etc the odds are high you have another non engine 2-3k in stuff to get the next 100,000 miles.
So, is it worth 4-7K to keep a 13 year old vehicle on the road another 3-6 years depending on how much you drive it? Totally depends on the owner. If someone is not so inclined to do the labor themselves.. they need to really love it.
My skills are maybe high side of medium and I am willing to try often (done head replacements other vehicles, replaced clutches on manuals in the day) but my available time is pretty low with a business that keeps me on road 3-4 months a year and young family. I'm also cheap so don't want to pay when I can do. If I was retired it would be different.
I need to decide on what level of maint I do when timing belt rolls due in two years or if any at all. I like the tractor but it may get parked for a few years until I have the time to play with it or I may just decide...