Finally getting cambelt done 2 years overdue

Rolandtheroadie

Only ever had one belt fail, it was the wifes car so technically none for me. Saved thousands over the years by not doing them.
Her "new" car is a 1999 Passat diesel with no history and a mileometer reading of 150k (although checking the MOT history it's probably more like 215k).
It'll get changed, but only when I get round to tackling it myself.

sarahg1969

Citroen said my cambelt should be changed at 100k miles or 10 years, but it went in spectacular fashion at 49k miles. Fortunately, Citroen paid for a whole new engine for my car, as well as my out-of-pocket expenses (after some persuasion via the court process).

A common fault, and they refused to do a recall.

Netwizard

I don't know why you wouldn't get it done. I run a sub £1k shed with a none interference engine, but even so, the first thing I did was get the cambelt done. cost £50 for the cambelt / tensioner bits and £50 for an hours labour with the local mechanic.

That said, I need a reliable car (i'm disabled) so for the sake of £100, its worth it

Norman_Castle

Citroen said my cambelt should be changed at 100k miles or 10 years, but it went in spectacular fashion at 49k miles.

I've known two of two that have broken. One had recently been changed, the other was halfway through its expected lifespan.

Weird_Nev

Netwizard wrote: »

I don't know why you wouldn't get it done. I run a sub £1k shed with a none interference engine, but even so, the first thing I did was get the cambelt done. cost £50 for the cambelt / tensioner bits and £50 for an hours labour with the local mechanic.

That said, I need a reliable car (i'm disabled) so for the sake of £100, its worth it

It's a $2,000 job (£1,300) on my car, so you certainly want to plan for it.

prowla

I had a cam belt go on my Vectra on the M4; not a good thing and it cost a bit to repair.

londonTiger

I am really curious as to whether it actually needed a cambelt or not.

I get the feeling that it's common for people to not change cambelts until they're very overdue. The belt on mind looks like in good condition. It was just overdue by miles by 10K and 2 years my time. However, that is the most safety conscious guess because that's based on the last bit of paperwork. There may have been a subsequent change that is not logged because service book is full.

The bit that puzzles me with the mk4 golf is that the first cambelt change is at 60K, then each subsequent changes are 40K. The mechanic told me that if it was his car he would have just do it every 60K rather than 40K but professionally he would only recommend the VW's schedule.

Weird_Nev

It's all about "mean time before failure".
Some belts will go on forever, practically.
Some will fail early.

Some poor soul has sat down and worked out the probability of failure and decided where they can set the limit to ensure that 99% of engines don't fail due to a snapped cambelt. Put a faulty belt or tensioner on there and it's all for nothing - it will fail.

Of course you can run on and on and on with an old cam belt, and hopefully nothing will go wrong. But for every person who "gets away with it" another person is looking at a four figure bill for a new engine. Ultimately, it's simple preventative maintainance that stops a much bigger bill in the near future.

sarahg1969

Norman_Castle wrote: »

I've known two of two that have broken. One had recently been changed, the other was halfway through its expected lifespan.

It's a common problem on the diesel C8 pre Oct 06 and there have been several defect reports to VOSA but Citroen/Peugeot refuse to recall in the UK. They know about it but seem happy enough to deal with those customers who are most assertive. I'm surprised there have been no serious injuries, to be honest. Mine went at high speed in the outside lane of a busy motorway.

londonTiger

sarahg1969 wrote: »

It's a common problem on the diesel C8 pre Oct 06 and there have been several defect reports to VOSA but Citroen/Peugeot refuse to recall in the UK. They know about it but seem happy enough to deal with those customers who are most assertive. I'm surprised there have been no serious injuries, to be honest. Mine went at high speed in the outside lane of a busy motorway.

thats bloody scaryy, you have to hope thats theres enough momentum to allow you to continue to roll into the hard shoulder and there aren't middle lane hoarders staribg into the abyss unaware that someone is coasting on the right without an engine