Interference Engines for Dummies

Other than a house, many people will never own anything more expensive than a motor vehicle. Come on now, millennials, once you start having kids you'll stop "sharing" and buy a minivan just like your parents and grandparents did... but we digress. Even before smog controls made cars impossible to work on, engines were a black box for 90% of the public; now it's even worse. That makes the topic of "List of Cars with Interference Motors" on eHow.com (now at ItStillRuns.com) somewhat interesting, though why Cayden Conor (aka Cheryl Bowman) thought paralegal training qualified her to address it is... curious.

First things first, though: Conor's definition of an interference engine (what most people say instead of "interference motor") is a little squirrely. According to Cayden, 

"Several cars feature interference motors. An interference engine means that the tolerances are so close that if the timing is off even just a hair, the valves will hit the pistons."

Well, no Cayden, that's not what an interference engine is. It's not "if the timing is off even just a hair," it's "if the timing belt breaks." Every engine, interference or non-interference, has close tolerances, but the engine will continue to run, albeit less efficiently or with reduced power, if the timing is off "just a hair." The point of knowing whether your engine is an interference type or not is knowing whether it'll be trashed if the timing belt breaks; or whether there even is a timing belt (interference engines generally have timing chains).

According to Conor,

"When working with timing belts and chains, you must know whether the vehicle is fitted with an interference engine..." ...which is pretty much bull. When determining whether your timing belt needs maintenance, yeah, that's critical -- and let's be real: timing chains generally last the life of the engine, so no one replaces them. Now that's out of the way, let's take a look at Cayden's "list": Six different Toyota engines used at various times between 1980 and 2000 Some or all Hondas from 1980 to 2000 Certain Dodge models in the years 1995 to 2000

And that's all she wrote. Not only does Conor completely ignore a couple of other nameplates (Chevrolet, GM, Chrysler, Fiat, Jeep, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac, Ford, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen, Mazda...), she also uses a printed auto manual that, even when she wrote this dreck in 2011, was a decade out of date! All that even though there are many online resources that are kept up-to-date. We even found one with a video of how to tell just by looking at an engine.

We don't know about others, but if we want someone to provide a list of interference engines, we want information that's1) accurate and 2) up-to-date. Conor misses on both counts – especially the "up-to-date" business. More than 2/3 of the vehicles at Antisocial Network HQ are post-2000 models -- what good is information from this Dumbass of the Day for those owners? None: hence the award.

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