Cambelt - change it or risk it?

jase1

facade wrote: »

It's a vauxhall.
Vauxhall can't make a reliable timing drive to save their collective lives, belt or chain.

Change the belt and tensioners quick.

On a Vauxhall, the water pump letting go is the least of your worries. I've had the alloy tensioner body disintegrate at less than 20,000 miles old

Agreed. If you've spent £40 replace the belt only on a Vauxhall, you've basically just set fire to £40.

I would never, ever buy a used belt-drive Vauxhall without a proven fitting of belt, tensioner and pump within the last 40k miles unless it was super-cheap and within 5 miles of my normal garage. The bloody things are made of cheese.

Stoke

jase1 wrote: »

I would never, ever buy a [STRIKE]used belt-drive [/STRIKE]Vauxhall.

There you go

Fireflyaway

Tarambor wrote: »

Eh? They're normal service costs of running a vehicle.

Just think, if you'd not left the tyres til they're almost illegal and not left the cambelt until it was past when it should have been done you could have staggered the costs so you weren't paying out so much. At 15 miles a day you could have got the tyres done months ago.

The tyres are not illegal. They have nails in.....

Apodemus

bigadaj wrote: »

Depends how you sell it.

I changed a ten year old focus for a one year old car from a main dealer, main dealer just looked over the car and come up with a trade in, presumably based in we buy any car or similar.

When I picked up the new car and dropped the old one off they seemed a bit shocked that I'd turned up with some of the service history, including the receipt for the timing belt completed the year before.

For a trade in on an oldish car, is there any relation to the old car’s value at all? Is it not simply comparable to the “discount for no trade in” or “deal of the week”or whatever whim the garage or salesman might have? Chances are it either goes to scrap or a scrap-type value at a car auction. Just too much hassle (and risk) for a dealer to sell in any other way.

buglawton

Strider590 wrote: »

Despite what some would say, it's not usually the belt that fails, it's usually the tensioner, the water pump or the rollers that wear out and snap the belt.
So changing the belt alone is just a waste of money.

Correct, happened to my Vectra on starting the engine for a holiday to Ireland. Avoided cambelt designs since.

Nobbie1967

Apodemus wrote: »

For a trade in on an oldish car, is there any relation to the old car’s value at all? Is it not simply comparable to the “discount for no trade in” or “deal of the week”or whatever whim the garage or salesman might have? Chances are it either goes to scrap or a scrap-type value at a car auction. Just too much hassle (and risk) for a dealer to sell in any other way.

I get the impression that cars are now advertised by traders at pretty close to what they will sell them for, gone are the days of knocking hundreds off a £3k car. Therefore they can't juggle the figures to give you more for the trade-in than it's worth to make you feel good while reducing the discount on the car you're buying.

Different with new cars obvs, scrappage etc.

Stoke

buglawton wrote: »

Correct, happened to my Vectra on starting the engine for a holiday to Ireland. Avoided cambelt designs since.

Sorry but there's nothing wrong with cambelt designs, so long as the timing system is designed properly and the tensioning is correct.... oh and the interval is correct. VW learned that the hard way with the Lupo, initial interval was 60k, until people started coming back with engine fails after 50k, so they changed the interval to 40k.

Peugeot have an interval of 100k miles. Wow.

Chain driven cars are great, until they're not maintained properly and then the chain wears prematurely and it costs an absolute fortune to get it fixed. Pros and cons with both designs ultimately.

facade

Stoke wrote: »

Sorry but there's nothing wrong with cambelt designs, so long as the timing system is designed properly and the tensioning is correct.

Vauxhall miss both those points...

Stoke wrote: »

Chain driven cars are great, until they're not maintained properly and then the chain wears prematurely and it costs an absolute fortune to get it fixed. Pros and cons with both designs ultimately.

Vauxhall have got that sorted too, even if you change the oil and filter for the correct vauxhall branded fully synthetic oil less than every 6000 miles you won't get more than 30,000 out of a Corsa before the chain rattles like a diesel

Writing from first hand experience....... :mad:

bigadaj

Apodemus wrote: »

For a trade in on an oldish car, is there any relation to the old car’s value at all? Is it not simply comparable to the “discount for no trade in” or “deal of the week”or whatever whim the garage or salesman might have? Chances are it either goes to scrap or a scrap-type value at a car auction. Just too much hassle (and risk) for a dealer to sell in any other way.

Well there is because the car will almost certainly go straight into an auction and so the value offered will be a wbac or more probably a bca valuation from similar stock sold recently.

I'm not sure where you get scrap value from, it obviously ain't worth a lot currently in that regard in relation to steel scrap value, I got about a grand for it.

You do see even larger main dealer service groups have budget offerings, maybe down to £2k or below, I'm surprised they bother with the potential hassle and comeback.

scd3scd4

Over the years I have run a decent new family car and an older one for work and back. My view was to just run them/it into the ground. I did not care what happened to them. But then I had back up if I needed to get to work the next day. If its only for a few months I would risk it. But that's me.


Always had full AA covered for both. In fact some of the bangers I have bought have served me well.


Picked up an old Lantra for about 1k from a lady who's husband had died. That car passed nearly every mot and I spent very little on her in parts and service............7 years later I sent her to the big crush plant in the sky.