Timing chain problem

This is going to make me sound stupid but my truck was burning a lot of oil without me noticing so now my timing chain is stretched and the mechanic said there has been serious damage done to the engine. So does anybody know if I should replace the timing chain or do what the mechanic suggests and wait until the engine crap out and replace it all together?

 

Any warning lights or funky sounds now or before you brought it to the shop?

If it's consuming that much oil already your seals are probably bad, maybe your piston rings and who knows what else.

The motors are interference motors so worst case your valves and pistons made contact if the chain stretch is extreme.

That said you should be able to hear it slapping if it was really bad and have VVT-i out of range codes.

If you're not mechanically inclined it's a good idea to take it to another trusted mechanic for verification but I would start shopping around for a clean low mile replacement motor.

 

I would get a second opinion.

 

How many miles on the motor and why was it using oil? You said burning so you never noticed blue smoke out your tailpipe?

 

Welcome to TW.

How many miles on it? 4 or 6 cylinder?

Are you burning oil or losing it through leaks?

Leaking valve covers front and rear crankshaft seals, timing chan cover...

If it's being burnt; where is it getting in?

Past the rings, valve seals, bad PCV valve, head gasket.

Here, you need a compression tester and a way to get a little bit of oil into the cylinders, as you should do a compression check with cylinder dry as it were, and with a little bit of oil (wet) to get in and help seal around the rings.

All cylinders should be fairly similar with their readings. Any major differences in PSI will show you what cylinder is having issues.

If a low cylinder PSI is markedly increased dry vs wet (oil), that's rings. If not, the problem is head, or head gasket related. NAPA makes a product that tests whether or not combustion gases are present in the antifreeze.

And remember, the only stupid questions are the ones that go unasked.

Diagnosing this far only requires some basic tools, with the exception of a compression tester, time, and patience. I'll add, that if you're not that mechanically inclined, a torque wrench will help save you from possibly stripping threads.

The hardest part of the job imo, is disconnecting and reconnecting the coils' harness on top of the spark plugs. I got the V6 and the front cylinder on the driver's side is somewhat of a biotch to work that coil's connector. Other than that, it's not difficult.

If you decide to dig into it a bit yourself; do it with a cold engine. Less chance of damaging any threads. Especially the plugs.

Hot metals are softer than cold...

Good luck and keep us in the loop.

 

It has 160,000 miles and i would assume its burning oil because of bad valves. I did not notice smoke coming out of the tail pipe.

 

It had a rattling noise and a check engine light and the code said crankshaft position sensor so after I had that replaced the rattling stopped so i thought i was good then it came back so i thought maybe the mechanic didnt do the relearning for it or something and so it took a while before i got around to take it to the shop and now I am here.

 

While it’s not common, the 2.7 has had oil consumption problems. Most of which is contributed by sticking oil rings. General consensus is, low tension rings like clean(er) oil. If you do a search you will find a few others with oil problems on mid 100k engines. Again. It’s NOT common, but has happened.

Do as @Larzzzz said, do a compression check. Wet and Dry.

 

Could be the forgotten PCV.