95 Elantra - Timing Chain Broke - how much can I expect to pay for repair?

Not at all ridiculously high. That car uses a timing belt, not a timing chain, which is why it broke. They are supposed to be changed every 60,000 miles. How many miles on the car?

When a car with an interference engine breaks a timing belt bad things happen. Valves and pistons come together in ways they were never designed to. They don't withstand that encounter well. It is most likely that the valve train on your girlfriend's car was damaged by the belt breaking. I would not be surprised to see a final bill significantly higher than what you're looking at now.

It's very rare for this car to strip or break a belt and not require at least replacing the valves. In the worst cases, whole engines were required.

I see.

Well, not exactly what I was hoping for, but many thanks for giving me a clear answer. Hard to find these days.

Thanks again, to both of you.

It's not very rare to strip or break a belt on this cars, but very rare to get a reasonable repair quote. Regarding belt or chain- some Hyundai in house developed engines have both (weird design), timing belt driving only the exhaust valves and a chain, connecting exhaust and inlet camshaft and driving the inlet valves. A broken chain will only stop the inlet valves which in some cases can be repaired by DIY expert. Repair shops will never re-pair such jobs and will only replace components and charge accordingly. A broken timing belt will stop inlet and exhaust valves and repair costs will be that much higher.

It's not any more common to break a timing belt on this car than any other 4 cyl with a timing belt. Considering that belts are common on

You really shouldn't post things that you haven't a clue about. You may actually cause someone to run a belt to failure and then need a fairly extensive engine overhaul rather than a simple belt replacement. On interference engines, running a belt to failure is a really dumb idea.

Matt

If this is one of the 1.8 Mitsubishi dohc engines, it's common for the timing belt to strip even prior to the maintenance interval. I've replaced stripped timing belts on these prior to the car reaching 25k (almost always with cylinder head work, too).

Rare to get a reasonable repair quote? What's reasonable? What's the price of a head? Or a valve train, even? A broken timing belt on an interference engine is usually a pretty major event. It should cost $200 to fix it?