Car Troubles

laurence_p

easy and cheap if it is then. if it is buy a complete timing belt kit and waterpump.

gazfocus

laurence_p wrote: »

easy and cheap if it is then. if it is buy a complete timing belt kit and waterpump.

Thanks, I hope it is. Will wait and see what the garage say.

laurence_p

a good vauxhall forum is migweb, full of useful info and engines and parts for sale, there are also a few good lads who can fit engines for a decent price. good luck.

gazfocus

laurence_p wrote: »

a good vauxhall forum is migweb, full of useful info and engines and parts for sale, there are also a few good lads who can fit engines for a decent price. good luck.

Thanks, the car's at a garage at the moment and no way of getting it back until it's fixed unfortunately as the garage is 30 miles from where I live

Will look at that forum so thanks

gazfocus

Just had a phone call from the garage that have my car at the moment. I currently owe them £40 for the 'investigation' they've done. They have confirmed that teeth are missing off the cambelt but not sure what's caused it. They said to find out what's caused it and how much damage it's caused it will cost me a further £80 as they will need to remove the head. They said 'as a guide', they did a car about 6 weeks ago that needed some of the valves replacing (he made a point of saying not all valves needed replacing) and it cost the guy £650, so potentially the whole job could cost me just under £800 (For a ~£1000 car).

Now I need to decide whether I should agree to them taking the head off (at a cost of £80) to find out what's wrong with the car in the hope that it's a cheap fix (but could potentially lead to the car gets scrapped) or just get the car scrapped and save wasting further money on it.

If anyone could offer ANY advice, I would really appreciate it as I really don't know what to do.

hubert_cumberdale

the screeching noise you heard may well have been the lower pulley coming loose it was a common thing on the 1.3 sb block that vauxhall made i had it a couple of times. The block in yours is the same small block with different crank and cylinder bore. a c16se or c16xe engine if i recall. It can screech if it becomes loose as its touches things it should. how ever this normally results in a engine that stops straight away.

it could have also have been which happened on mine recently the water had frozen and the water pump couldnt turn it didnt jam staight way but obviously as it heated up some ice dislodged and made its way into the impeller chamber. My belt was ok but i shattered a blade of the water pump

was it cold and icy when it did it

also if the engine is still running and not misfiring i very much doubt the valves hit. When they hit on that engine its pretty catastrophic and noisey. The 1.3 will sometimes get away with it but the 16 has long valves that dont get along with pistons.

a cam belt should be about £15 max from an auto factor and a water pump is probably £40 and it should take about 2 hours for an amatuer.

gazfocus

hubert_cumberdale wrote: »

the screeching noise you heard may well have been the lower pulley coming loose it was a common thing on the 1.3 sb block that vauxhall made i had it a couple of times. The block in yours is the same small block with different crank and cylinder bore. a c16se or c16xe engine if i recall. It can screech if it becomes loose as its touches things it should. how ever this normally results in a engine that stops straight away.

it could have also have been which happened on mine recently the water had frozen and the water pump couldnt turn it didnt jam staight way but obviously as it heated up some ice dislodged and made its way into the impeller chamber. My belt was ok but i shattered a blade of the water pump

was it cold and icy when it did it

also if the engine is still running and not misfiring i very much doubt the valves hit. When they hit on that engine its pretty catastrophic and noisey. The 1.3 will sometimes get away with it but the 16 has long valves that dont get along with pistons.

a cam belt should be about £15 max from an auto factor and a water pump is probably £40 and it should take about 2 hours for an amatuer.

The garage have said that the water pump is fine. It wasn't particularly cold or icy. We had travelled in the car for 50 minutes to Manchester and then were on our way to Liverpool (about 30 mins into the journey) when this happened so any ice would've been well and truly melted.

The engine won't start at all at the moment.

esmerobbo

Ask yourself what is an 1998 Astra worth and is it worth spending £650/£800 on it.

gazfocus

esmerobbo wrote: »

Ask yourself what is an 1998 Astra worth and is it worth spending £650/£800 on it.

That's what I'm trying to do. I bought it for £1200 about 6 months ago and done about 10k miles since. It's done nearly 98k miles and I don't want to spend £800 to fix the car to then be left with a car that's done 98k miles.

However, in the back of my mind I'm wondering 'what if it's only going to cost £200 to fix it' but I won't know until I spend another £80 and I just can't decide whether it's worth spending that £80 knowing it could end up in the car being scrapped anyway.

gazfocus

anyone else?