It is safe to say that the internal combustion engine is the most important component of any vehicle. It generates the power needed to move the wheels of your vehicle and get from one place to another. Have you ever wondered what keeps this engine positioned and stabilized? Well, it is a special part called the engine mount. Even though this is a smart part, the engine mount has the ability to align and stabilize the entire weight of an engine in the vehicle. This helps it perform optimally, especially when driving on uneven or rough terrain.
7 Bad Symptoms
If your engine mount goes bad, it will have a severe impact on the stability of the engine. Not only that, many of the parts and components that are connected to the engine might get damaged as well. If you don’t replace your engine mount quickly after noticing these symptoms, you could be looking at many thousands of dollars in repairs. And if it gets to the point where your entire engine becomes damaged, you might as well buy a new car.
To save yourself all this trouble, you simply need to educate yourself on the common symptoms of a bad engine mount. Below are the top 7 symptoms to help you get started.
1) Vibrations
The engine mount is supposed to secure the engine tightly in place. If there is just the least bit of looseness in the engine mount, the engine will not be secured well enough. During the early stages of this, the engine will start to vibrate. Everyone in the passenger cabin should feel these vibrations coming from their seats.
2) Engine Bay Noises
Engines weigh hundreds of pounds. When you have an unsecured engine that rattles or shakes around in the bay area, it will start to make banging and clunking noises. It only takes a little bit of shaking for these noises to be generated.
3) Engine Movement Impact
Engine movement is never a good thing. As the engine mount gets more worn down, it may eventually break entirely. Then you’ll have an engine which slides around from side to side and back and forth. As you step on the gas pedal to go faster, the engine’s movement will be felt more intensely too.
4) Engine Misalignment
If you suspect that your engine mount is bad, simply inspect the engine and see if its height is aligned equally on every side. If you have a bad engine mount, you should see some misalignment on one of the sides. It will just hang down more on one side versus the other side. A titled engine means you have a bad engine mount.
5) Belt and Hose Damage
When you accelerate at high speeds with a bad engine mount, this will damage your radiator hoses and engine fan belts. This won’t happen right away, but it will eventually happen if you let this problem continue unresolved.
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6) Worn Rubber on Mount
Engine mounts have a rubber coating on them. When you visually inspect your engine mount, you can easily see if it is bad because the rubber will be deteriorated or cracked. As soon as you notice that, replace the engine mount as soon as you can.
7) Engine Damage
The worst symptom of a bad engine mount is actual engine damage. The early stages of a bad engine mount involve a lot of cracks and looseness. After a while, it will get to a point when the mount breaks or snaps entirely. This is what will make your engine bounce around as you drive your vehicle. Each time the engine bounces, it is causing damage to its internal components. The faster you drive, the more damage that is being done. Sometimes you’ll have parts just fly out of the engine. At this point, you will need to purchase a whole new engine for thousands of dollars.
