Car Conundrum

I’d find a better independent garage - timing belt and associated gubbins on a Fiesta should be easy work for any decent garage.

Has the belt actually gone and damaged the engine?

I'll call another one tomorrow, there's one I've used in the past that seems to be pretty good / reliable.

The belt has disintegrated from what the garage said which is why they've mentioned to replace it and the parts. But I'm not sure entirely what that entails. Although it still drove fine before I decided to do something about it - probably a few weeks and it only threw up the light on the dash when the engine was cold i.e in the morning but would be fine on startup in the afternoon.

The issue was something I decided to get sorted before it got worse rather than the car not working etc.

timing belt and associated gubbins on a Fiesta should be easy work

Not if it's an Ecotec

Is it a wet belt? Might be why the local won’t touch it.

I'd be asking how a disintegrating timing belt has

a) caused a low oil pressure light (unless its a wet belt?)
b) caused damage to the fuel pump

replacing the water pump is often matter of course - I'm not aware (but a quick google will tell you) if thats the case for a fuel pump.

either way, once you've paid up you may as well stick with it, its got a load of new parts on it

It's a 9year old Ford even once it's fixed so won't have a huge amount of life left in it before it rots/breaks again - I'd get rid and buy a Yaris/Corolla

Not sure if it's a wet belt - will have a google.

Forgot to mention it's an Ecoboost - garage have said they're not the best engines.

Edit - have had a look, it's a wet belt and recommendation is that they last 150k miles. I'm not doing mega miles at the moment, only about 60 - 80 a week, that's been the case since I bought it apart from a few trips, one was about 1000 miles in May 2022 and about 600 in February 2023 otherwise i've done about 3-4000 in total.

Been pondering the same thing after my car got rear-ended a fortnight ago. Been pondering whether to buy it back if it's written off financially (I like the car and know it well) so have gone through the various scenarios. What I've figured out is:

Cheap and cheerful cars don't really exist right now, even something that's an imminent MOT fail is worth £1k. I've come up with a figure of £2k as a limit I'd spend on keeping a known car going for another year or two, any more and it's better to buy something newer but even 9-10 year old cars are around the £5k mark. Basically the current car shortage has inflated the second-hand market so much that even the bottom end is expensive now. Long gone are the days of a year's motoring out of a £500 snotter unless you get very lucky.

In your situation and provided the car is in otherwise good nick (and you like it!) I'd get the belt fixed. As you haven't had the belt snap the engine should be otherwise fine if you get a competent garage to fix it.

Forgot to mention it’s an Ecoboost – garage have said they’re not the best engines.

A quick google suggests the wet belt breaks down and blocks the oil strainer, causing the low pressure.
On youtube it looks a nasty job and assume everything is replaced, ‘whilst you’re in there’

I think my best bet is to at least consider what another garage, or two have to say. Would be a bit rash otherwise. If they won't touch it, spreading the £1700 over 6 months seems tempting, think it was interest free...

I don't desperately need the car but it is handy to have and would be a lot of money to lose out on if I didn't get it fixed. Realistically, public transport would cost me £20 a week, ironically still more than fuel for a week.

Take a look

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6428787/ford-transit-custom-suspected-wet-belt-failure

Not sure if the Ecoboost engines are subject to the same issue but I suspect they might be if also a wet belt

I think my best bet is to at least consider what another garage, or two have to say.

Worth a phone around. Doubt you’d need to get the car there for a ball park number on a timing belt change.
I wonder if it’s failed early due to skipped oil changes or crap design.

Crap design basically. The wet belt was Ford trying to save money by using a timing belt instead of chain, but trying to increase the service intervals by running it in oil to please fleet buyers with super long service intervals. In reality it achieved neither of those things.

My gut feeling is to get the work done at the dealer. The first garage declined to work on it and others may feel the same plus you would have the additional cost of getting it to another garage for any work. So if you are in it for 300 plus the cost of a tow how much will another garage save you? At least you know the work is done and hopefully to a decent standard. Buying another car will have its own problems. Cars will always need bits doing, my wife’s 2015 has had tyres, exhaust, discs, timing belt, new sump, hand brake cables over the past couple of years, still cheaper than a new car and we know what’s what with this one.

I’d find a better independent garage – timing belt and associated gubbins on a Fiesta should be easy work for any decent garage.

Has the belt actually gone and damaged the engine?

I am assuming the car concerned is a wet cambelt 1.0 petrol ecoboost? In which case a belt change is quite far from easy work.

I have been reading up on these as we have that engine in a Focus of very similar vintage but lower mileage. The interval for the cam belt I was told is 10 years or 100k or 150k depending on exact variant/advice at the time. Ours is due on age.

If it helps I've just had a price of £1100 for belt replacement on ours from our usual reliable independent. There was a full service on top (you'd at least need oil and filter I believe).

Edit: I see @airvent has summed up the design issue perfectly.

We really like the car and we are three years from first son being of driving age so we are definitely having ours sorted. At the low mileages it does my view is it should do another 5+ years with a little suspension refresh without too much bother.

In your shoes I'd probably spend the money. Better the devil you know principle. I had a 6 year old Passat that threw up worse bills than that.

If this is a known/niche problem, is it also possible there is some wee guy that's carved out a niche fixing it and can offer confidence/fixed price...?

If this is a known/niche problem, is it also possible there is some wee guy that’s carved out a niche fixing it and can offer confidence/fixed price…?

The issue is it's just a massive amount of labour along with a small number of special tools and the usual cambelt change bits. As far as I understand the process there are large amounts of car that need removing that on most cars are never removed in their normal lifetime. With the interval the first generation of these cars have really only been going in to have this done in the last year or two. Pig of a job to save a couple of hundred quid on the car when it's new.

Having said all that I expect the local Ford specialists are getting geared up for these now as noone really wants to pay franchise labour rates on such a big job.

Option C

If the car has full ford service history or atleast been serviced on schedule with the correct oil you could ask ford for goodwill or threat legal action as the belt has failed before then 10 year/ 150,000 interval

Options D

Pay the £300 to reassemble the car and take to webuyanycar as they only seem to care about bodywork and don't test drive cars

Pay the £300 to reassemble the car and take to webuyanycar as they only seem to care about bodywork and don’t test drive cars

Why is it classed as OK to sell a donkey of a car to WBAC ? Just because they're a big company and offer low prices ? This confuses me every time it comes up.

Because they sell donekys themselves through British car auctions which are sold as seen?

Why is it classed as OK to sell a donkey of a car to WBAC ?

Because they are ****s of the highest order. I would gladly stitch them up with an absolute snotter after having to get involved with recently bereaved MIL and MrsRNP selling deceased FIL car to them.

Thing is though it's not them that's going to get stitched up, just the poor bugger that buys it at auction.

And it's not their rules, it's the law.

Why is it classed as OK to sell a donkey of a car to WBAC

We buy ANY car.

Last I checked a donkeys still a car.

If they don't do their checks well......

And as for getting stitched up at auction.... That's the joy of auctions. It's been the case long before wbac existed. You just had to put it to the auction your self , thainston car mart was a popular place to get rid of your shitters.

From a 15 second Google, a disintegrating wet belt can cause the oil feed to the engine to become blocked.

...went in for an intermittent oil pressure light on dash...
...Although it still drove fine before I decided to do something about it – probably a few weeks and it only threw up the light on the dash when the engine was cold i.e in the morning

Oil pressure light is the one light you never ever want to see. It's red for a reason, stop! Many engines have already eaten themselves by the time the light comes on (our friend wrote off a Fiesta engine after letting the oil get low enough to make the oil light flicker whilst going around roundabouts, but that was a dry belt engine so the oil feed was sucking air for a few seconds each time)

Why did you drive it with the light on!? The one straw you can clutch at is to read some of these results and see if it's a sign of damage, or if others have got away with the reduced oil pressure without damaging the engine.

Normally I'm a strong advocate of fix your problems rather than buy someone else's, especially if your £2000 repair turns into a £8,000 loan for a newer car as that's certainly cost you more.

I'd suggest an engine inspection to see if the engine has been starved of oil, and if it's still a big gamble perhaps just put a new/2nd hand engine in there (although you'd probably still need to change the belt on a second hand engine)

https://www.google.com/search?q=ecoboost+wet+belt+blocked+oil+feed&client=ms-android-ee-uk-revc&sxsrf=AJOqlzWgIllD2lN2ekx82yFmJvtUok0GCQ%3A1678865117912&ei=3XIRZPSpN8aChbIP9rWXkAM&oq=ecoboost+wet+belt+blocked+oil+feed&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAMyBQghEKABMgUIIRCgATIFCCEQoAE6CggAEEcQ1gQQsAM6BAgjECc6BwghEKABEAo6CAghEBYQHhAdOgUIABCABDoGCAAQFhAeOgUIABCiBEoECEEYAFDQFFjBTWCuVWgBcAB4AIABkwGIAaUMkgEEMC4xM5gBAKABAcgBCMABAQ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp

if it’s still a big gamble perhaps just put a new/2nd hand engine in there (although you’d probably still need to change the belt on a second hand engine)

One that is fitted by supplier and comes with warranty

There's no harm in getting an honest valuation. A criminal conviction isn't worth the hassle though and the evidence trail won't be hard to follow...Ford main dealer, international forum, etc 🙂
"Yes, we buy damaged and cars in need of repair.
We do recommend that you declare any faults or damage as they may affect your final valuation.
Faults or damage can be added after completing a valuation on our valuation confirmation page, or can be completed at your appointment.
Below the valuation is a list of the assumptions we have made about your vehicle. Underneath the list of assumptions is a link which invites you make changes & add damage. After selecting the link you will be directed to a page which allows you to declare any faults and damage.
A revised valuation will be provided which is reflective of the changes you make."
https://www.webuyanycar.com/frequently-asked-questions/

Any chance of a follow-up with the seller?

Oil pressure light is the one light you never ever want to see. It’s red for a reason, stop! Many engines have already eaten

I guess as the engine has to be properly opened up, sump off etc to do the job, assuming the bores are ok, big end bearings and other nasty jobs are easy at that point.

You could ask them to get the oil checked or look in the bores.

I know it's a lot of money, but I'd be inclined to fix and continue with it. You've already lived with the car a while and spent £££ on the clutch and other ongoing stuff. Better the devil you know etc.

I know more about the wet belt disintegration on the 2.0l euro6 Transit engine where it generally lunches the engine when it happens. £1700 isn't a full engine replacement so I'm guessing the 1.0 Ecoboom's different. Also, once done at least you know it won't happen again and will have new belt and ancillaries.

Assuming similar cause/effect to the Transit engines, belt disintegration comes about from oil dilution with fuel. Fuel in oil knackers the belt. Ford did some software updates to lessen this. Speculation about incomplete regens of the DPF not helping. Recall on a big batch of vans for wel belt inspection. Once it breaks down it can block various bits. Belt replacement on Transit's a £1000-1500 job.

There’s no harm in getting an honest valuation. A criminal conviction isn’t worth the hassle though and the evidence trail won’t be hard to follow…Ford main dealer, international forum, etc 🙂
“Yes, we buy damaged and cars in need of repair.
We do recommend that you declare any faults or damage as they may affect your final valuation.

Nothing in there about not shitting in the glovebox before you hand it over?

belt disintegration comes about from oil dilution with fuel. Fuel in oil knackers the belt

increased bioethanol and the unburnnt componant that gets past the piston rings into the oil..... swells the belt.

The belt then shreads on the edges of pulleys.

Same issue with the puretech

We had similar last year when we decided to sell the nice car that wasn't getting used and replace it with a cheaper one that we didn't need finance for.

Bought a 11 reg BMW X1 with 107k on the clock for £6800, which was around £800 too expensive but after viewing a couple of rough examples didn't seem too bad as it was very clean. It was also just down the road rather than a trip to Leeds or Manchester where all the others seemed to be.

Anyway, a prop shaft went on the way home from the garage, which was nice. Fixed under warranty but I also noticed the front wheels were wearing unevenly and all four we budget tyres. Garage said they'd either pay for the tracking or replace the fronts with another set of budget tyres. Decided to get the tracking sorted but strangely the bloke I needed to talk to was never in when I rang....

In to the garage in goes for four decent tyres and the tracking sorted. £500.

Then while on holiday in France the clutch went. While in a garage in Paris we are informed the dual mass flywheel needed sorting as well.... We had Euro cover with RAC so after plenty of arguing, flights too and from France, a £3000 initial payout and lots of stress we ended up around £1600 out of pocket.

So having owned the vehicle for less than 6 months the cheap motor had cost us nearly £9000 and was probably worth half. All I wanted to do was get rid but I eventually realised that buying another cheap car could lead to similar problems so kept it and tbf it's running well now. Virtually every car I've had before has been on some sort of finance so I'm used to working out how much a car costs per month over the time I have it rather than worrying about what the actual forecourt price was so providing the X1 lasts another year without anything major going wrong it won't turn out to be as expensive a mistake as first thought so if I were you I'd probably suck up the cost and get it fixed. At least that way you have half a chance of getting some value from the car.

Look at it this way. You can spend £1700 on repairing your car and have a car with a new belt, clutch and some new bushings. If you buy a used car for £1700 you could be getting anything, it could end up being in way worse condition.

Maintenance is a cost of motoring. Unless you can afford to upgrade to a significantly newer car you are just rolling the dice in the hope of avoiding a bill. You might end up paying far more.

Pay the Ford garage, fix to the correct standard. You're not putting a lot of miles on the car. In two years, this will have recouped much of the value spent (due to lower mileage) and a known issue will have been dealt with to the correct standard. Changing car is not an option for what is basically a convenience not an essential.

Ask Ford for some goodwill, even £300 would be a win. It's not a new engine and a £7000 bill.

Look at it this way. You can spend £1700 on repairing your car and have a car with a new belt, clutch and some new bushings. If you buy a used car for £1700 you could be getting anything, it could end up being in way worse condition.

Why did I have to read so far to see this comment?

The only maths you need to do is £1,700 (or whatever an specialist independent might charge) vs. car replacement cost.

From what I've seen of used car prices lately, that's an easy decision to make.

Pay the £1700 over 6 months with a properly fixed engine that'll probably be fine the rest of the car's lifetime with you. Or buy another car for £1400 (minus the £300 you have to pay regardless) and hope it's not another duff 'un?

Seems like a no-brainer to me.

and all four we budget tyres

A slight thread aside - but never buy a car with cheap ditchfinders and also cheap crap filters (if you can see the oil filter) and the battery on older cars. It's a sign of skimped maintenance and being run on a shoestring.

I don't change cars often but the 17year old Peugeot Partner I bought had a full set of matching Continentals, a Mann filter and a Bosch battery. It's been a great little car/van thing - they are out there but it needs patience to find them.

Id personally rather see the maintainance being done full stop than worry about what brand of filter is on there. No point having a good filter if it was last changed 30k ago.

As for the tyres, as I said before I just bought a dealer car with full service history with shitty ditch finders. It means nothing really, especially if you're running stupidly low profiles that burst every other month regardless.

^well it's advice that's stood me in goodstead in 30years of driving &buying cars, feel free to ignore

not sure I'd be happy spending more than 50% of the value of the car on a repair but once it's done it should be good for a few years at least. If you're planning on changing car sometime soon that may change perspectives. Try and get a quote from elsewhere though!

A slight thread aside – but never buy a car with cheap ditchfinders and also cheap crap filters (if you can see the oil filter) and the battery on older cars. It’s a sign of skimped maintenance and being run on a shoestring.

Mate of mine says the same buuuuut......

Id personally rather see the maintainance being done full stop than worry about what brand of filter is on there. No point having a good filter if it was last changed 30k ago.

It had full service history with receipts and was clearly in very good condition on the surface, for an 11 year old, 100k+ car.

Ultimately buying older cars is always going to be a gamble, which is why we usually buy new! Cost more, less hassle. Unfortunately not an option atm.

get it fixed imo.

Cars are expensive gambles. Sometimes you win sometimes you loose.

Thanks for all the replies and apologies for the late response,

I think the most reasonable thing is to get it fixed and hope nothing else goes wrong. Probably spread it out over 6 months and hopefully get a few more years out of it. More than a convenience than a neccesity but it definitely helps to have it, I'm not doing many miles but long term I should get more from a value point of view. It's mainly frustrating how much of a money pit it's turned into, but as mentioned above, that's just how it is with cars.

hope nothing else goes wrong

That's motoring!

Have you tried approaching Ford for goodwill?

The only problem with fixing the belt is there could already have been damage/ premature wear caused by the lack of oil pressure. The only way to be sure would be to strip the engine which is clear not cost effective. I wouldn't be surprised after you pay for the repair to be done the turbo fails shortly after

The only way to be sure would be to strip the engine which is clear not cost effective

The oil could be analysed for bits of metal. Also the rod bearings could be checked whilst the sump is off to change the ridiculous belt. Cam journals could be checked too.
The unknown would be the turbo I'd imagine.

Blatant plug, but I am just about to sell my 16 yr old Mazda 3 Sport (2l petrol) - 12 months MOT and a good runner. We have owned it since new and it only has 65k on the clock. £1,800. Based in Harrogate.

Only selling as I have been gifted a newer car by my in-laws.