[dockap]

wont the broken camshaft cause damage to the surrounding area?
the area around the broken camshaft seems spotless like a mirror.
most likely this is from another car. mechanic must have swapped it to your car during the wait for spare parts (you mentioned your car was in the service center for some days waiting for spare parts)

[svsantosh]

Complete DejaVu

In my accident, the sump missed by a whisker and entire underbody chassis and diesel tank and gear shifter got blown away.

But crankshaft breakage is very much possible, Could you recollect if you were in high RPM, just about to accelerate, etc. Cos if the Engine was trying to push more torque, and the drive shaft just SEIZED to spin the wheels in a FRACTION of the second - THEN EXTREME stress is directly transferred to the Crankshaft enough to Stress-fracture it. Its just BAD BAD fate for it to break after the insurance comp closed the case.

You can only pray and hope someone powerful can convince Sundaram guys.

PS - My guys were Cholamandalam Insurance.

[deutscheafrikar]

ask the dealer to call and show this camshaft damage to the maruti service engineer. Nigel

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by svsantosh

Cos if the Engine was trying to push more torque, and the drive shaft just SEIZED to spin the wheels in a FRACTION of the second - THEN EXTREME stress is directly transferred to the Crankshaft enough to Stress-fracture it.

Hey, it's the cam shaft!
The engine was idling perfectly after the accident and was turned off by Don.
Clearly, nothing had broken till that time!

[ImmortalZ]

Originally Posted by svsantosh

But crankshaft breakage is very much possible,

Crankshaft. Camshaft. Different things. His camshaft broke in half.

[drpullockaran]

Originally Posted by svsantosh

Complete DejaVu

In my accident, the sump missed by a whisker and entire underbody chassis and diesel tank and gear shifter got blown away.

But crankshaft breakage is very much possible, Could you recollect if you were in high RPM, just about to accelerate, etc. Cos if the Engine was trying to push more torque, and the drive shaft just SEIZED to spin the wheels in a FRACTION of the second - THEN EXTREME stress is directly transferred to the Crankshaft enough to Stress-fracture it. Its just BAD BAD fate for it to break after the insurance comp closed the case.

You can only pray and hope someone powerful can convince Sundaram guys.

PS - My guys were Cholamandalam Insurance.

Camshafts and crankshafts are totally differents components. In Dons case the camshaft broke which is at the top of the engine unlike the crankshaft whcih is at the bottom of the engine.

[drpullockaran]

Originally Posted by rjvora_2000

When everyone is talking of the technical parts of the car and engine, let me talk on the subject which matter the most for me and that is Insurance.

Sirji let me tell you how this claim can be payable!!! Yes according to me this claim is payable.

Word which is used to refuse your claim is “consequential loss”; this is not the consequential loss let me tell you how? The word you can see in your policy document. (Please read your policy document and you will understand this term better.) If you are going to some business meeting for some business deal and because of the accident you cannot reach that meeting and have to face some monitory loss – This is called consequential loss and not this loss, this is a part of same accident.

Make the surveyor understand that if a part is broken in the engine that car is not in a driving condition at all you cannot drive the car if that is the case, and at the same time you are not mad that you will replace this part standing on the road and then claim for insurance. Insurance company is not willing to pay your claim and noting else.

I myself stay in Mulund and your car is just 5 K.M. away from my place. Tell me any time I can come and make this logic understand to any surveyor.

Don I sincerely think that rjvora should accompany you to the insurance agent. After the meeting you could take him for lunch.

As far as pinning the workshop guys is concerned all we have to see is the top of the piston head. Being an interference engine the indentation of the valves on the piston should be there if the broken camshaft belongs to you. If there is no mark of the valve head on the piston crown then for sure the camshaft came from the mechanics friends engine. I had to similarly accompany a Honda accord of a friend of mine(team bhp member) to explain to the chief mechanic there that his bull crap will not work with me. Honda was crapping allover my friend with bull crap and since he did not know much about the head assembly of the Accord he had to take it lying down and coughed up for the whole head assembly once before. WHen they asked him to change the head assembly at full cost a second time in a months time for no fault of his he approached me for help. All the dealers are out to cheat so be warned. No one is innocent.
I am sure rjvora will give the insurance agent a piece of his mind for your benefit.

[ThE_DoN]

@ Takumi-san - The picture of the stone is given in Picture no.8. There were 2-3 similar construction stones lying there and I hit one of them, but I didn't bother taking the pictures of the same. You can make out the type of stone if you see carefully behind my car.

@ drpullockaran - The service advisor was mentioning me the concept of possible valve damage the last time i was there. He explained that without proper cam movement the piston may have hit the valve damaging each other.. This leads to more confusion. Either he is genuine and is explaining to me all the possible damage before hand or he is extremely well prepared icase he is cheating. The point is how can we even prove that the damage is done at their end Or they are replacing some parts. Btw, I hope to be accompanied by Mr.Vora tomorrow so lets hope for the best. I am almost certain of filing a consumer case if I am denied the claim. There's no way I can pay up 1-2 lacs on a 4 month old car(investment).

@All - I wish our cars start having a black box or something soon which can record impacts and other info. It would be of immense help to all!!

[Jaggu]

is the cam exposed/protruding into the oil sump? If so, if the stone gave a solid hit, then can leave a scar on the cam, wont it?

Insurance claim is definitely on the cards, and i dont buy into whatever consequent damage theory. Escalate at the highest level, its a plain accident and they better pay up.

[Pashin]

This looks more like a manufacturing defect rather than accidental damage. Probably the camshaft had a hairline crack or a blow hole which cracked under pressure. your engine is just 4 months old. Maybe a few more months down the line the camshaft would have cracked on hitting a small pebble. File a consumer complaint not only for the insurance but also against the manufacturing company and have them to respond to the oil sump explanation. If its so critical they should have positioned it in a safer place. Make sure you hire a good lawyer.

[aaggoswami]

Again it has given more confusion to me.
Its possible that the crankshaft was affected after the hit as oil has suddenly lost pressure and was splattered as we can see from images.

So is it possible that the crankshaft was damaged and then it lead to more damage ? May be the crank gave up and later on other parts were affected. But shearing of camshaft is unique. It looks like that the camshaft broke due to sudden stop from some speed, and this is possible because if the crank broke/gave up, then of course the belt/chain stopped and so did cam.

Sorry if my theory looks like a bad dream or something, but this was once observed by me in some car, I dont remember which, but it was Veena motors in Subhanpura area in my city.
I am not sure if such a thing can happen.
Is piston, connecting rod OK for all cylinders ?

[ThE_DoN]

Hi All,

I had a visit to Spectra today along with 'rjvora_2000' (Thw man has a gem of a heart - Sincere thanks for accompanying me today sir)

To start off, I got a reply from Royal Sundaram mentioning that they are discussing taking my case with senior authority and will give me a final official reply by Tuesday. Today, Rjvora and I went to Spectra had a chat with their Asst. works manager - Mr. Vipul, who is handling my car there.

1) I realised that they haven't actually opened the head of the engine. They have just opened the top cover from which only the cam is accessible. Hence I could not have a look at the valves, piston etc. They explained the entire incident to me and rjvora again in detail. He repeated that these modern diesel engines are very powerful and compact and since it had already reached operating temperature a sudden loss of oil caused the cam to overheat - expand - jam and hence break off. He said that there would definitely be damage to valves and piston.

2) I have taken additional pictures of the other broken part today and am attaching the same. In the second pic you can see damage to the cam itself due to broken shards (yellow arrow).

3) The red arrow in the third pic was thought to be cam bearing but it was not. It just fits in the cam body as showing pic 4 (red arrow). You can see the slight damage in pic 4 due to the cam expanding. I asked him why there is no visible damage on the cam rod (yellow arrow 2) since there is damage to the body (red arrow). He mentioned that the body is made off aluminum which the rod is made of tough metal.

4) Regarding the all important timing chain - Swift diesel has a timing chain (metal) and not a timing belt as other petrol engines. He mentioned (showed in a diesel engine lying in his workshop) that the oil sump etc can be replaced directly being under the engine and there is no need to open the side of the engine to access the timing chain). Hence he said that the timing chain cannot be misaligned by them. Also, he said the moment the cam rod broke it would have mis-aligned the chain.

5) They have sent an estimate of parts to Roal Sundaram. I took copied f the same and am attaching it. Amounts mentioned are of labour. The estimate of parts is mentioned as 'at cost'. He mentioned an approximate estime of arounf 80,000 today. However he said that realistic estimate is possible only after he opens the head.

Awaiting Royal Sundarams official reply on Tuesday! A hearty thanks to rjvora once again !!

[bblost]

As per the Maruti A.S.S.

1. Given the break in the sump, how soon would the oil have left the engine.
2. Within how many minutes will the engine become inoperable.

If the amount of time is very less, that is the window you have to contest the "Continued to drive" claim of the insurance company.

For example.
The oil would take less than 2 mins to drain out of the topmost part of the engine.
Since that is where this part is.
Within 2 min of that the engine would crack up.

Gives you a window of 4 minutes.
Does the insurance company consider that as "continued to drive"

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by bblost

As per the Maruti A.S.S.

1. Given the break in the sump, how soon would the oil have left the engine.

The engine was operated for around 4-5 kms. It was near to its operating temperature or was operating at operating temperature.
So there was pressure inside. As soon as the sump broke down, the oil that was under pressure suddenly found a way to go out. I have mentioned splattering of oil on engine bay components in my earlier post in this thread.
This oil splattering due to sudden coming out oil from pressure was also noticed by the thread starter as he mentioned in one of his replies to post.

[ThE_DoN]

Originally Posted by bblost

As per the Maruti A.S.S.

1. Given the break in the sump, how soon would the oil have left the engine.
2. Within how many minutes will the engine become inoperable.

If the amount of time is very less, that is the window you have to contest the "Continued to drive" claim of the insurance company.

For example.
The oil would take less than 2 mins to drain out of the topmost part of the engine.
Since that is where this part is.
Within 2 min of that the engine would crack up.

Gives you a window of 4 minutes.
Does the insurance company consider that as "continued to drive"

As per the insurance company - If you drive for even a metre after the accident you are liable for the damages. In my case I was already at the left most side of the road - which is why the darn accident happened in the first place.

Regarding time to seize - as per Spectra - works manager, the stone hit burst the oil sump along with the oil strainer (which i have seen). The instant it broke the strainer the oil to the cam stopped and it caused an instanttaneous increase in heat and expansion of the cam rod. The rest you can see in the pics.