What are the facts about 'wet cam belts', Vauxhall and others?

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Mildly_Miffed said:

Ford and PSA get all the rep for wet belts, but did you know they've actually been common on VAG 1.6 and 2.0 diesels for damn near twenty years now?

Just not for the cam.
For the oil pump... with no change interval.

Bearing in mind VAG's reputation for oil pump drive failure when they were chain driven that is hardly an endorsement

The late Honda Civics use a wet belt and they have a reputation for failure too....

Alltheolddudes

Just had a nightmare with my 69 Vauxhall Grandland X. Only done 36K miles and had a major brake system failure on the motorway doing 70 mph. Very scary and managed to dodge 2 big HGVs to pull into the hard shoulder and stopped after around 250 yards after using clutch, gears and what was left of the brakes to stop.Good job the hard shoulder was clear clear and the wife wasn't driving as it could have been a lot worse. Had a few mechanics look at it to see if a quick fix but appears to have been a brake pump failure caused by a lack of oil in the upper engine which may have been caused by a wet belt wear issue.(i.e. belt parts caught in various parts of the oil system causing oil starvation). Initial Vauxhall diagnostics £150 identified several issues including a worn wet belt and severely degraded front braking system.Another £300 and waiting for the 3 hour diagnostics to complete before I find out if I need a new engine.Not sure I would get on if I had no money and also waiting to see if this is covered by warranty!!

ThisIsWeird

Alltheolddudes said:

Just had a nightmare with my 69 Vauxhall Grandland X. Only done 36K miles and had a major brake system failure on the motorway doing 70 mph. Very scary and managed to dodge 2 big HGVs to pull into the hard shoulder and stopped after around 250 yards after using clutch, gears and what was left of the brakes to stop.Good job the hard shoulder was clear clear and the wife wasn't driving as it could have been a lot worse. Had a few mechanics look at it to see if a quick fix but appears to have been a brake pump failure caused by a lack of oil in the upper engine which may have been caused by a wet belt wear issue.(i.e. belt parts caught in various parts of the oil system causing oil starvation). Initial Vauxhall diagnostics £150 identified several issues including a worn wet belt and severely degraded front braking system.Another £300 and waiting for the 3 hour diagnostics to complete before I find out if I need a new engine.Not sure I would get on if I had no money and also waiting to see if this is covered by warranty!!

If you have a FSH - ideally Vauxhall's, but certainly using their later recommended oil - you should be ok.

Be prepared for an initial 'non', but persevere.

There's a thread on a Vauxhall forum where Vauxhall themselves are demonstrably aware of failed brakes as a result of this issue, but avoid mentioning the 'cause'.

I'll try and find it again. It also has plenty examples of folk in your situation, and how best to tackle them.

Mutton_Geoff

Just watched a very interesting You Tube explain the issue with wet belts. I've been messing around with engines since the early 1970s and I would avoid buying anything with one of these fitted. He goes onto explain why the 3 cyl turbo engines are worst.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SASSFjIt5I

ThisIsWeird

ThisIsWeird said:

Alltheolddudes said:

Just had a nightmare with my 69 Vauxhall Grandland X. Only done 36K miles and had a major brake system failure on the motorway doing 70 mph. Very scary and managed to dodge 2 big HGVs to pull into the hard shoulder and stopped after around 250 yards after using clutch, gears and what was left of the brakes to stop.Good job the hard shoulder was clear clear and the wife wasn't driving as it could have been a lot worse. Had a few mechanics look at it to see if a quick fix but appears to have been a brake pump failure caused by a lack of oil in the upper engine which may have been caused by a wet belt wear issue.(i.e. belt parts caught in various parts of the oil system causing oil starvation). Initial Vauxhall diagnostics £150 identified several issues including a worn wet belt and severely degraded front braking system.Another £300 and waiting for the 3 hour diagnostics to complete before I find out if I need a new engine.Not sure I would get on if I had no money and also waiting to see if this is covered by warranty!!

If you have a FSH - ideally Vauxhall's, but certainly using their later recommended oil - you should be ok.

Be prepared for an initial 'non', but persevere.

There's a thread on a Vauxhall forum where Vauxhall themselves are demonstrably aware of failed brakes as a result of this issue, but avoid mentioning the 'cause'.

I'll try and find it again. It also has plenty examples of folk in your situation, and how best to tackle them.

Thanks for the prompt, MuttonG - I'd forgotten to add the link to the thread I'd mentioned.

https://www.grandlandforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=1063

Funnily enough, it has that same video (very good, by the way) in its last post.

On page 30 of that thread, it shows the recall notice issued by Vauxhall, cleverly avoiding the fact that it can lead to near complete engine destruction; they just refer to it possibly reducing braking efficiency...

Wet-belt def off my next car list.

OpenMinded

My 2017 Citroen was serviced by the main dealer every year. Had low mileage. 

No recalls. 

However in 2022, 6 months after its ‘major’ service the engine failed. Being heavily pregnant and snowing I took it to the nearest garage - a French car specialist. 

Before he even looked at it he knew it was the cambelt, oil issue. He said I was lucky my engine didn’t blow and had I driven it further it mostly likely would have! 

Despite this being a known fault, and my car serviced by Citroen, they failed to pick up on this. 

It cost me £1000 to replace the belt and I’ve had nothing but issues with my car since. Likely damage caused by the cambelt. 

Citroen refused to reimburse me, with the motor ombudsman siding with them. 

Apparently I should have driven 45 minutes to the nearest Citroen garage with an engine failure, in the snow and being 38 weeks pregnant, rather than the 2 minutes to the nearest garage!

I have since spent a further £1000 and advised by our mechanic to get rid of the car as too many  ongoing issues. 

I can’t believe despite it being a design fault, they’ve been allowed to get away with it. 

asp746

I've got a 70reg Grandland, serviced at Vauxhall dealers and wet belt needs changing asap it's corroded - 48,000miles. At it's last service Jan 24 it was an 'advisory' change but this was never done and now it's urgent - I bought the car in Aug '24.  A lesson learned for me is to always read service  history as selling garage hadn't on this occasion and i'd not have touched it if i'd seen that advisory.  The garage I bought it off are changing it for free - they gave me the lecture as belts not covered due to wear & tear but I could show them the service history that should have prevented them from selling it.  If i'd gone to a backstreet garage i'd not have got such a thorough service so I guess you get what you pay for at it was £565 for the service and with my old car I used to just get my key back with a £200 pound bill and I'd have been driving round with a ticking timebomb.  BTW so happy with my 1.2 turbo Grandland, has quite a bit of pull - slightly sluggish pulling off but I think that goes with it being an auto - would recommend. 

richie3846

1.2 crossland turbo, 70 plate.
Recently had a red oil pressure light on the dash which only appeared briefly. I topped up the oil and then continued to drive another 30 miles or so over a few days. The light appeared again, and I had to call recovery. The problem, you guessed it, a blocked oil system because of this wet belt thing. The car has done 49k miles, and is 4.5 years old, so whatever has been said about 6 years 60k, it's just not worth waiting out without at least getting the belt checked out. 

We should have the car back by Wednesday, the mechanic understood the issue well. He has not indicated any engine damage at this stage. Before the light came on, the car was running well. If there is damage, then I'll be hounding Vauxhall until they compensate. It's disgusting they haven't done a recall on this. It's cost us £700, I've never known anything like it on a car of this age. 

I'm reading mixed information about the standard of the latest OEM belt. Here's hoping it lasts longer than the first one.

400ixl

Personally I wouldn't buy any car with a wet belt. If I did then it would be the first thing changed along with checking for any blockages. Even at 4 years old I would be changing it to make sure I knew exactly what was going on.

facade

What I don't understand about the puretech engines, is why they block up all the internal oilways.

Doesn't the oil pass through a paper filter that stops anything larger than 40 microns?

Or does the oil just bypass the filter most of the time, which rather defeats the point of having one?

I suppose the job of the bypass is to let unfiltered oil through when the paper filter clogs up as unfiltered oil is better than no oil at all, IIRC, in The Olden Days when the oil would go pretty much solid after about 3000 miles, when the filter blocked, the bypass opened and the oil pressure would be low, so the light came on- is this what happens to the puretech- when the light comes on the oil is bypassing the filter and the pieces of belt start blocking up the oilways.

So if the light has never been on with the engine running you can "get away with it" and just clean out the strainer and pickup pipe?