2.0L Interference?, Timing Belt

[grvaughan]

I can't seem to get a straight answer on whether my 2001 Protege 2.0 LX has an interference engine or not (it's 16V DOHC).

The car's got 86K miles and the maintenance schedule says to replace the timing belt at 105,000. Since it's only four years old, it seems OK to wait, if the belts nowadays are really good for that. I've had timing belts go out 3 times, always by about 85K miles.

The dealer says it's not an interference engine, and I don't really want to mess with it yet if it's not, but several sites on the net say the 2.0 DOHC is.

I thought maybe someone on this forum might know for sure about the belt and the engine.

 

[terbow]

Ive read that its a non interference engine.

 

[J dragon]

what does noninterference mean....

 

[terbow]

The valves dont touch the pistons (they dont anyhow, but they come close, u can see in some pistons theres a relief cut into them for valve clearance), so like if the belt breaks ur pistons *shouldnt* smash into the pistons cause the timings off.

 

[03promaz]

Noninterference means that when the cams come out of time that the pistons will not hit the open valves

If the timing belt breaks on an interference motor it goes BOOM!!