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Talking to service guy from our local Main Dealer about this. Ours will want doing in about 18 months. Apparently Ford allow them 3 hours to change one but on an Ecoboost engine it's 12!!!! He reckoned it was probably quicker to take the engine out????? Is it just me or does that sound like a design fault? 🤔How much? £1300!!!! Best start saving I guess or out the car before then 🙄
Ask Honest John - and look for another service place.
Open your bonnet.
Locate timing belt.
Look at what all needs to come off.
It's 8hrs + kit for the replacement.
Originally designed as a life time of car job as it's oil soaked etc.
Is it a 1.0l? If so, the belt runs in the engine oil within the engine structural front cover & it's major job but should last the "lifetime" of the car. For 1.6l is a more normal setup just under a plastic cover & should be a few hours work. What mileage is the car?
As above. The time and cost quoted sounds like its for a 1 litre engine of which the cam belt should go the life of the car unless it fails which would render the car unusable. How would a technician know you'd need it doing in 18 months?
Oh and they are a bugger to prime the oil back into afterward.. have to take oil filter off and on again and prat around. They are a difficult engine.
1.0 was designed lifetime but later revised to 150k /10 years
Hence why no thought was put into replacing it .
But like BMW "for life" gear box oil with no drain plug
Trade it in for something that wasn't designed by an idiot.
To be fair 150k/10 years is pretty much the same. Interval as a chain.
Everyone believes chains are zero maintainance
150k /10 years is pretty much an average cars life span.
There are outliers such as the famous Ibiza that was magic and did 300k on nothing more than tires and brake pads but for the most part they die of rust and poor maintenance (that only gets worse as the value of the vehicle gets lower)
For most part a 10year/150k interval will not cause an issue.
And on the 1l it's mostly the predetonation causing block failure that will kill it prior to a timing belt failure.
Don’t bother changing it, run the car till the belt fails then drop a second hand motor in.
150k /10 years is pretty much an average cars life span.
Ah, one thing I'm permanently above average in.
Ford CAD monkeys designing something that can be knocked together with the least amount of time with no thought or regards to how someone will fix/service it later.
The amount of times I've wanted to take the stupidly designed bits of my Transit and smash it through whatever version of Microsoft Paint/Sketchup/Autocad LT they designed it with.
I don't think the engineers or designers made the decision to make it hard to maintain. That would probably be more of a marketing thing. 'Lifetime' engine sounds like some marketing bollocks you hear a lot.
Those cambelts do indeed last the lifetime of the car. When it breaks that's the end of the car's life.
I don’t think the engineers or designers made the decision to make it hard to maintain. That would probably be more of a marketing thing. ‘Lifetime’ engine sounds like some marketing bollocks you hear a lot.
I run a Transhit and an older Volvo V70. The Volvo is an absolute joy to work on - you can tell it was given forethought to how it would be repaired. For example the little foldable flap in the wheel arch so you can access the crank timing pulley, the small tabs on the exhaust gasket so they hold themselves in place when installing the catalyst etc ec.
The Transit was clearly CAD designed to be as quick as possible to build on a production line. There is no thoughtfulness in its construction - bollocks to anyone fixing it in the future. Hateful vehicle.
The Transit was clearly CAD designed to be as quick as possible to build on a production line. There is no thoughtfulness in its construction – bollocks to anyone fixing it in the future. Hateful vehicle.
Me think they are designed to be "disposable" ... 🤔
Hence they made it as hard as possible to fix.
That is why Japanese or Korean cars are easier to "fix" according to my boy racer mates in the far east, and if they see someone driving a BMW or a European car coming in for a fix they would be grinning from ear to ear rubbing their hands with glee ... better still Range Rover. 🤑
Why would you want to design a car to be easy to work on? As engines are pushed harder and harder with more and more attention to detail needed on every component as you're pushing them harder then why would you want any old aspiring grease monkey attacking your engines on their drive getting cheap parts from questionable untested aftermarket sources with variable quality, then when it all goes pear shaped hitting some internet forum blaming the manufacturer for their crappy engines. Reputation is everything these days so manufacturers are going to want to protect themselves from anything that might threaten their reputation and keeping 'have a go mechanics' away from their cars is one way to do that.
You give them far too much credit .
They need to keep it simple for the majority of their dealer network to be able to work on it.
There are some good ones....but the parts fitters far outweigh the mechanics.
Reputation is everything these days so manufacturers are going to want to protect themselves
The thing is, reputation is different from reality.
Everyone buys VW and other German cars, yet thier reliability is sh*the, even from new.
They buy that solid safe door closing sound I think. It's their only redeeming feature 🙂
Our german car has an umbrella hole in the door, that's a redeeming feature and a half.
It’s called ‘perceived’ quality 🙄
Sums it up really, marketing over engineering.
Ours is a 1.6 Focus. It was only a conversation in passing. Ford recommends changing belt every 10years. Thing is by then the car won't have done any more than about 70K but I'm a sucker for FSH 🙄 To be fair the 4 years we have had the car the full Ford Service including a year's breakdown cover has been between £200 and £300 then nothing between services until last week when a rear ABS sensor went phut.
I guess at some point I will probably go to my local independent who I can trust for lower labour charges but to be honest the service charges I've quoted dot seem unreasonable.
The other thing is we are only doing about 7K miles a year it's a great car for bike hauling (estate) so in my mind it doesn't seem to make sense to chop it in any time soon unless it gets really expensive. Better the devil you know etc.
"The thing is, reputation is different from reality.
Everyone buys VW and other German cars, yet thier reliability is sh*the, even from new."
Skoda is the 2nd most reliable car in the 2019 JD Power survey. VW and SEAt both better than average.
https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2019-uk-vehicle-dependability-study-0
The Fleet News survey has 5 German models in the top ten.
Average age of the cars surveyed ?
"trail_rat
Member
Average age of the cars surveyed ?"
Probably newish. Your point? it was in response to a post saying German cars were "sh*the, even from new.”
Is this the same engine where the service schedule at 100k says "replace engine block"?
And
https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/honest-john-satisfaction-index-2018/top-10-most-reliable-cars/
Or least, just out of warranty
There are outliers such as the famous Ibiza that was magic and did 300k on nothing more than tires and brake pads
Keep up. It wasn't magic; just very reliable. And it was 274k miles, not 300k miles.
I doubt it made it to 300k miles as the bloke who bought it from me had it immediately remapped to 170bhp or so (I recommended he didn't) and the clutch started slipping within days....he worked at a clutch/tyre place though and was planning on sticking an uprated clutch and SMF into it (again, I recommended the SMF was not a good idea).
Did I mention our 1.6 petrol Citroen uses about a litre of oil every 700 miles? Apparently that's normal and within spec. The 308 with the same engine was similar.
The Ibiza didn't use any (to a measurable degree) between services. Nor does the current one for that matter.
You probably should stick to buying Ibiza's then 😉
trail_rat
Member
You probably should stick to buying Ibiza’s then
Need something a bit bigger, so probably chopping the Citroen in for a Leon estate (although also considering Civic, Focus or Ceed) later this yr.
My Wife can then have her Ibiza back, which I've been driving since our daughter turned up. 🙂
I’m intrigued on the reliability…
https://www.reliabilityindex.com/top-100/blockquote >
I'm quietly pleased that my last 2 cars are no.s 2 & 3 on that list 😁
...wrong thread!
The 1.6 is a development from the sigma/zetecE, hence the normal cambelt setup on the front of the engine. The 1.0 is completely different.
Fwiw I think I paid £350 for the full cambelt service at a local garage.
Seemed to be sone debate whether the water pump needed to be done at the same time (it wasn't done and 50k miles later it's still fine).
Although it's making a right racket, like the wheel is dragging a bit of plastic round with it but I'm at a loss to figure out what it is. Thought maybe abs ring but no lights on the dash.
Although it’s making a right racket, like the wheel is dragging a bit of plastic round with it but I’m at a loss to figure out what it is.
Might be the 'clutch' in the alternator pulley. If you have an engine stethoscope (if not they're only a few quid) try placing it on the bearing (taking care not to get it caught in the belt!)
Hmmmm, I'll have a look. I was certain it was wheel related as it sounds like something being dragged round once each revolution. Just can't see anything that looks like it's come loose.