You won't believe this luck...
Long post, but it will probably amuse you... enjoy...
Okay, so I was driving my '00 2.2L Camry home late last night on some back country (gravel) roads, and my front passenger tire blew... I did the best I could to control it in the situation, but still ended up going off the side of the road at a fairly low speed into a ditch -- Minor scrapes to the finish, a smallish tear in the plastic bumper cover near the wheel well, but thats all the damage I could see... Called AAA to get winched out of the ditch, spare put on (fortunately I had a fullsize in the trunk). Oddly enough, the mechanic said it looked like the tire had just jumped off the rim, and had no real damage... Puzzled by this, I drove the last ~20mi home with no further incident.
Got up the next morning, gave the car a once around... noted the spare was a little low on pressure for my liking, but not worth messing with, drove to class, again no incident. After class drove ~10mi out to WalMart (where the tires were purchased). Upon pulling into the parking lot and idling in front of the tire center I noticed a squeal/rattle apparently coming from the serpentine belt region -- Rolling my eyes I figure a bearing is dying and plan to visit my mechanic when I get home.
Explain to Walmart what happened, had them re-mount the tire, they said the valve-stem was shot (this explains how the tire went that flat in the first place) and replaced it - $10, no biggie. Squeak/Rattle persisted at varying intensity during the trip toward home/mechanic.
~2mi from the mechanic I hear a 'pop' followed immediately by loss of power steering (I figure my serpentine has gone), pull into the closed down gas station I was passing and pop the hood... Smoke from the general sepentine belt region... fun... I figure I can manage to get the car the remaining distance to the mechanic with no power steering, get back in the car and note that it's no longer running... cycle the key to off, crank it, and recieve a glorious sound somewhere between a bad starter grinding and a dead battery failing to completely pull the solenoid... pause a few seconds... rinse, repeat... call tow truck from 2 blocks down to take me to the mechanic.
Get to the mechanic, they of course poke around under the hood a bit, ask me to crank it... the guy under the hood jumps back saying 'What the hell is that?!?' at this point everyone in the shop wanders over for a look... It is quickly discovered that there is no coolant in the radiator (odd, considering I didn't notice it running hot). The head mechanic fiddles around a bit more and says that it looked like my crank was turning, but not the cam, which he said implicated the timing belt (sensible, as the serpentine was clearly still intact)... He then connected a failed timing belt to a seized water pump due to no coolant in the lines. All seems logical thus far...
According to the mechanic my 5SFE is a free-wheeler, and should not have killed itself in the process (I would think I would have heard some spectacular fireworks inside the engine had it done so)... He said in theory all I need is to repair the coolant lines, replace the water pump and timing belt, and all should be fine for around $200-$300.
Sound like an accurate assessment of the result of my really bad string of luck?
Edit: More importantly, does the timing belt blowing on one of these have a chance of crashing the heads?
Last edited by IrishFBall32; 10-20-2008 at 09:14 PM.
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n: Sorry to hear that bro.
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