Cambelt snapped, was 8 year serviced yesterday (!)
- Thread starter BunnyKillBot
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[TW]Fox;19276938 said:
Nope, its a 1990 car, its now 2011, but the belt was removed and inspected in march when a new water pump was fitted and was apparently fine (car has only actually covered 43,000 KM+Mi as it spent 11 years in storage so I guess that may have helped)
Caporegime
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Are you sure it's a belt and not a chain? Someone actually removed the belt of a 21 year old car and didn't change it? Surely you just change it anyway for the sake of an extra tenner!
Caporegime
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Considering a cambelt is cheap and an engine rebuild is very expensive I really don't know why you wouldn't have replaced it at that point just for peace of mind. It doesn't matter that it was in storage, cambelts are to be replaced after x amount of miles or x years as the material degrades over time.
I dunno, the mechanic felt it was fine, im sure if they felt it wasn't they would have said so as they would make more money outa the extra work... /shrug
I may get it changed on the next service then, its only a hundred quid or so and if it avoids an engine rebuild its money well spent I guess.
I may get it changed on the next service then, its only a hundred quid or so and if it avoids an engine rebuild its money well spent I guess.
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Soldato
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Rubber deteriorates and perishes with time, I'm waiting for the 'My cambelt snapped, and no one warned me!' thread. 
Seriously, get that changed...
Seriously, get that changed...
Caporegime
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Yep, depending on the belt design the teath can come off, the support structure inside the belt can fail causing issues, just cause you can't see anything wrong on the surface of the belt doesn't mean it's ok.
Indeed. I'm interested, cm1179, if you've ever tried this tactic of yours? And compared its effectiveness to being humble and polite? I rather doubt it, or you probably wouldn't think it such a great idea
well, i got 36 hours of solicitors fees and a barrister paid for, from a lapsed home insurance policy. it wasn't pretty and it involved a lot of hassle but it probably saved me about £5k and i won my case and there has been smaller instances. it is unfortuanetly the way of the world and i'm always polite in my dealings, i've just come to learn (and this includes being on the other side of things - i've worked in customer service) that it often pays to be a nuisance. and who are you looking after in these instances? you're looking after number one and or your familly, so no one else is going to do it for you.
and to clarify, i mean the op should be approaching ford gb, yet getting this done through the dealer. they've designed a product that they have guarenteed for 10 years/100k miles, it has failed before this time, leaving the customer in a situation.
it's best practice to change the belt whenever the engine is in the stripped stage to do so. my water pump failed on my vw golf within 3k of the belt being changed and i had it done again.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
The OP is not a customer of Ford GB for his car though. He didnt buy it from Ford GB, he bought it second hand, many many years after Ford GB sold it, for perhaps 20% of its original value.
[TW]Fox;19278045 said:
ford made it and he's kept up his service scheduling. you're entering into the realms of monopolisation if you cut customers off after a certain point. they've made a crucial part of the engine and given it a 10yr/100k mile guarentee that the owner will not have to change it before this time (we're talking 15k miles and 2 years off in this instance are we not) ford still have a duty of care, same as they would if petrol tanks started corroding within 10 years or the chassis' were rotting. the op has done nothing wrong and neither has the dealership as they both had faith in the manufacturers guidelines.
Ford might have made it but they didn't sell it to him - he presumably bought it from a private seller or an independant garage. There is no contract between him and Ford GB and there never has been.
Therefore he relies purely on goodwill. They have no legal obligation towards him whatsoever.
Therefore he relies purely on goodwill. They have no legal obligation towards him whatsoever.
i've stated from the off that imo there should be a goodwill claim here. there's no legal obligation on a warranty, even if it is within the specified period given by the manufacturer. even if this had happened within 3 years, for such a claim (looks like a new engine or head in this case) ford would still want a lot of information before they gave the go ahead and even then they may only pay for the labour.
when i worked for suzuki, any part of £350 required authorisation and this had to be supplied with evidence of the cars history and full details of the fault. even then, a claim could be thrown out, they're not legally obliged to pay for anything. even if they had authorised a claim, they could still deny the payment at audit or claim it back. this didn't effect the customer though as they'd already had the work done and it was the dealers loss who would then put in bogus claims for work (usually on courtesy cars) to tip the balance. but that's a whole other thread.
when i worked for suzuki, any part of £350 required authorisation and this had to be supplied with evidence of the cars history and full details of the fault. even then, a claim could be thrown out, they're not legally obliged to pay for anything. even if they had authorised a claim, they could still deny the payment at audit or claim it back. this didn't effect the customer though as they'd already had the work done and it was the dealers loss who would then put in bogus claims for work (usually on courtesy cars) to tip the balance. but that's a whole other thread.
Soldato
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Any chance the car could have been clocked / had the dash swapped out? so the belt was already on over 100k miles prior to going ping.
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[TW]Fox;19278303 said:
The Car was 1 year old from Inchcape Ford when i got it in 2004. I don't know whether that is classed as 'independent garage'. It has been in my care and well looked after to date.
It was the 8 year or 100k service, but i can take the point that because the clock was only 83k the garage wouldn't have felt it necessary to check.
The service and warranty book does say:
Ford Customer Relationship center confirmed they wont help out financially, and the garage had no obligation to do the cambelt at that level of service, however there was concern that the Ford garage didn't raise the work as an optional extra, or give advice on the cambelt at all.
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/thread for you maybe, my saga continues
Cheers for the advice given thus far anyway guys. Given its a some-what unusual problem (i presume most of you good, well informed drivers don't fall foul of this problem!) i will post back my experiences. Car is in a backlog at the Ford garage atm, but getting it moved to these guys before Ford get their grubby fingers on it: http://www.vrsauto.co.uk/To hell with dealer garages tbh
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No rebuild required if it does snap. The 1J is a non inference 'safe' engine
If you do get it done stress to the mechanic doing it how important it is to do the crank pulley bolt up properly. It can cause whole heaps of trouble when people go "Meh, that'll be tight enough".
Well, in that case, things asre perhaps slightly different as you could try and argue that Inchape Ford have liability under SOGA.
I emphasise 'try', mind