I was driving home from school and felt a slight jerk and next thing I know the car died and would not start back up and I rolled to an off-ramp. I was hoping it was just a bad fuel pump, but the guy that looked at my car (family friend) said the timing belt is bad and he thinks I bent a rod or valve. Tomorrow I am going to get a new starter (free replacement) to see if it will start and confirm if it is something internal or not. What do you guys think? Would this be a common problem for a 91 SE w/ 156K miles? Since it might be cheaper to just buy a used engine, what year maxima's will work? Thanks in advance.

 

Whoa! If it really is a timing belt that's broke, you should never, ever turn the engine again until it's replaced! That'll just do more damage.

 

sure its common if the belt wasnt changed within the last 60K miles. I bought my 92 with a broken t belt (cheap) and it bent every valve in the head. I took the head to a machine shop and got all new valves, guides on the exhaust (I think...maybe it was intake though), had them mill the head for flatness, valve stem seals and all the gaskets to put it back together for around $500. I could have gotten a used motor for a little more (or maybe less) but this had low miles and although the mechanic that worked on it was bad about over tightening the belts the oil and trans fluid was changed regularly so I just rebuilt the heads and put them on...it runs like a new car.

 

You need to confirm whether or not it actually broke. If it did, that would explain a lot. Sounds to me (and everyone else it seems) that it did in fact break. This basically makes your engine an expensive paper weight...

 

I thought 92 had a timing chain.

 

only if its a VE......

 

the VE30DE has a chain which is only in the SE from 92-94 the GXEs (which is what I was talking about)came with VG30Es and had a belt.