Okay, so I get off work today and start to drive home. The drive is about 20 minutes and for the first 5 or 8 it was fine. I soon noticed a slight rattle/buzz when I would hit around 2300 rpm in any gear and would continue until about 4100 rpm at which point it would go away completely. Well I get off the highway close to my house and the rattling/buzzing is constant no matter what rpm. The car starts to shake a bit and responds weakly to throttle. I'm literally 1000 feet from my driveway when the car starts to make all kinds of noise and then suddenly shuts off while I'm driving. So I steer into a development and pop the hood. Nothing noticable from what I can tell. I can see the brand new timing belt I just had installed in place and everything else looks peachy. I turn the key and the car will not start. The engine tries to crank but it sounds terrible so I just took the key out and decided not to risk damaging the engine any more by cranking the engine. What the hell is going on? Oh and on one last note, I put $10 in gas into the car before I went to work, and the trip computer showed ~85 miles until empty. I seriously doubt it would be no gas because 1) I regularly run until the trip computer shows 10 miles till empty with no problems (I'm a student so I never have **** for money) and 2) The car probably would have started for a little bit when I tried to start it after stalling.

I would really appreciate it if some of you would be able to point me to the right direction.

 

be a little more specific, where do you think this buzz/rattling was coming from?? how many miles ago did you have the timing belt replaced?

 

The buzz/rattling was coming from the engine bay but I couldn't determine where because I was by myself and the only way to hear it was when the car was in the 2300-4100 rpm range. After my car stalled I couldn't check because the car wasn't on obviously. I had the timing belt replaced the day before yesterday so like 30-40 miles ago

 

First sign of anything strange you should have pulled over and checked it. Any way 1.8t right?the rattle could have been something comming loose from the T belt install. I would pull the cover and check everything that was touched.

 

I did in fact pull over right when I first noticed the problem (forgot to mention) I checked what I could such as hoses, fans, and what I could see of the timing belt. Obviously I couldn't get a great look at the belt because I would have to take the front bumper off to do so. I couldn't see anything visibly out of place so I continued home. I couldnt do anything from that point forward because I had no idea the problem would escalate so quickly. someone in another forum mentioned it could possibly have been a leak in the fuel filter but wouldn't I have been able to start the car once I stalled if I had run out if gas? Running out of gas also wouldn't explain why I was getting a strange noise in only one particular rev range.

 

do you think it could be the oil pump?

 

Mass air flow sensor made that happen to me once but just a guess if the buzz was a little louder and more like a fast tick almost buzz like i would say bent valve or lifter broke as that happend in a toyota i used to have.

 

hmmm.....mine did somethign similiar with bad gas but i dont think it was making rattling noises. It drove like it was dieing till i filled it up with different gas and it was fine.

 

I dont think its a valve or something, if they had put the timing belt one tooth off or somethign, your compression would be off a bit, but nothing awful, if they did it so it would bend a valve, it would happen the second the car turned over. Id say somethign came loose.