VVT Warrantied By Dealer, Or Was It?
 

Alright, so to cut to the chase without mentioning the dealership.

VVT warranty was performed on my car last week.

Before the story TL;DR: How can the dealer replace the VVT without removing the timing cover?

I noticed that the studs for my PMM were canted at an angle and one stud was substantially higher than the other. This led me to believe that the dealership had damaged it when taking the timing cover off.

Now here's the kicker. I asked them about this, and they said they only took off the valve cover and never touched the side of my motor or the timing cover.

How is it possible to do the VVT without taking the timing cover off?

I have some really knowledgeable friends here in Northeast Ohio and they are taking the stance that the dealership replaced the VVT and are likely responsible for the messed up PMM studs, or they're taking the stance that nothing was done.

Some extra information. I saw no stress marks on the timing cover bolts, so I would say they had not touched those. And the crank bolt does have stress marks, and they say they had not removed that bolt.

IIRC the TSB shows a procedure for replacing the vvt without removing the timing cover. The timing cover is only removed in the event that they can not release the chain tensioner through the access bolt in the timing cover.

I install car audio for a living and at least once a week we have a customer notice a mark or scratch that "wasn't there" before we worked on the vehicle. It's not that they are trying to scam or cheat us, people just tend to look a little more closely at the small details after any work is done, and they finally notice blemishes that have been present for a while.

Ok, so there is a way. The service manager was really cool about it and went over some of this and that, nothing technical nor straight to the point on how they did it, but this clears up that there is a method. I appreciate the comment, thanks!

So that addresses whether they did the job or not. Now I gotta figure out what the hell happened to the studs for the PMM haha. Not that that needs a post, I'm just going to upgrade and I'll inspect/replace the studs. Hopefully the timing cover is fine

It's likely that the stud just isn't threaded into the timing cover all the way. They are at an angle because the flat spot on the timing cover that the mount sits on is at an angle.

Support the motor with a jack and block of wood. Remove those two 17mm nuts connecting the PMM to engine. Use an E10 inverted Torx socket to tighten down the studs and put the 17mm nuts back on at 60-70ftlb.

even if they did not remove timing cover they would have removed PMM to create much needed clearance to access blind holes.

removing PMM opens up that entire side of bay and makes things much easier to see and access.