My 2000 Accord broke a timing belt on the way to work, my best friend has a relative that is a mechanic telling him he has replaced a lot of belts with no problems. After getting the car back it idles really rough but seems to run fine with plenty of power. Its a 4 cyl. and getting readings of misfire on cyl 1 and 2 but not hearing any abnormal noise.

 

Your car has bent valves. It was very irresponsible of the mechanic to do the work without telling you your engine is what is referred to as an "interference engine" (which means when the belt breaks, even if the engine is idling, at least a few bent valve are basically a 100% probability).

 

I was afraid of that, I had googled it before and found out it was an interference engine but my buddy wanted to trust this mechanic, plus he did pay for it to be repaired. Would a new head take care of it, assuming the pistons are ok or is the engine completely shot?

 

Typically it is just the head; the pistons are fairly robust. That said, it might well be cheaper to have our current head repaired versus buying a head off a different engine (who knows what damage that head has endured).

 

Thanks for the advice shipo, you pretty much confirmed my suspicion. The reason I thought about replacing the head was due to seeing rebuilt heads on ebay for around $300.00 but I think the car is worth saving either way, tranny was rebuilt less than 2 yrs ago and its a nice clean car.

 

Good luck getting it back on the road and please keep us posted.

 

Will do.

 

For giggles, you could ask for a compression and a leak down test to confirm the issue.

Yes, if it was me and time was an issue, getting a rebuild head is the easiest. If not you have to pull it and send it to a machine shop and let them "work it" for a few days - with no idea of what all will need to be done.....just a few valves, all of them, guides, ect.