Help before i send my car to the scrappers?

[starkslewis]

I was driving to work in my 2008 ford focus 1.8tdci yesterday when my car made a horrible clunk noise and a quick engine malfunction popped up on the dash so i quickly pulled over and turned the car off to avoid any further damage. went to start up again to see what would happen and to be able to give info to the RAC mechanic and all i heard was a whizzing sound like the starter motor was spinning but wasn’t contacting or doing anything to the engine. also no engine light or anything came up. Immediately i thought it was something to do with starter motor or flywheel but then asked myself why would the car make a horrible noise like that whilst i’m driving.

RAC guy arrives a couple hours later and opens the bonnet and quickly says it’s probably the cambelt, i had checked the cambelt to see if it had snapped so i questioned him in this and he quickly said you cannot see it. I feel like he was quick to diagnose this as he realised it wasn’t going anywhere and wanted to get it towed and get the job done quickly. i also thought surely if the cambelt had gone then the engine would crank over more and you’d be able to hear the pistons moving etc?

I’ve now got a e46 325i which will be insured on the 10th so no longer need the focus which has 153k miles but before i send it to the scrapyard i was hoping to maybe get some help and hopefully it is just something small like a starter motor and the RAC “mechanic” just wanted to get the job over and done with.

[magpie215]

An engine with a snapped cambelt sounds hugely different when cranked over on the starter.

Only way to be sure is to remove the timing belt covers and have a look.

Other way is if the cam is visible through the oil cap get someone to crank the engine if the cam is static=snapped belt or some other failure jumped teeth etc

[starkslewis]

magpie215 said:

An engine with a snapped cambelt sounds hugely different when cranked over on the starter.

Only way to be sure is to remove the timing belt covers and have a look.

Other way is if the cam is visible through the oil cap get someone to crank the engine if the cam is static=snapped belt or some other failure jumped teeth etc

yep the sound alone is what made me not believe the RAC guy but surely he knows at least a tiny bit about cars to work for the RAC? unless he just didn’t know and made something up because he couldn’t be arsed

[Martin350]

I totally agree with magpie.

Your description does sound like a typical timing belt failure.

[sunbeam alpine]

I agree with the others.

When the cambelt snaps, the valves stop opening and closing, there is little or no compression - so much less resistance for the starter motor to overcome - leading to the starter motor spinning the motor much quicker.

[227bhp]

Ring your local garage up or a mobile mechanic, that's what they are there for.

[GreenV8S]

starkslewis said:

i had checked the cambelt to see if it had snapped so i questioned him in this and he quickly said you cannot see it. I feel like he was quick to diagnose this

You can't normally see the cam belt and if your RAC agent said you can't see it, it's safe to assume this is not what you checked. Perhaps you looked at the ancillary drive belt, which is completely different.

The RAC diagnosis sounds quite reasonable and I think you will probably find he is correct. Anyone who had experience of an engine with a broken timing belt should recognise the sound when it is cranked over and give you a 99% confident diagnosis based on that. To get a 100% definite diagnosis you would need to take the cam belt cover or rocker cover off to confirm that the cam is not working. On a low value car if neither of those are easy to get at, it might not be worth the cost of doing it to get that final 1%.

[paintman]

^^^^What GreenV8S said.

You may also find that your engine has two timing belts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzT9zlbn5Z4

Edited by paintman on Friday 8th February 16:32

[starkslewis]

Ah okay sorry completely misunderstood the first set of responses there, i also didn’t realise their was 2 belts so i must of only saw the 1 belt and came to conclusion it was something else, i don’t think it’s worth the repair as the car itself is only worth around £1000 and has 153k on the clock

[stevieturbo]

paintman said:

^^^^What GreenV8S said.

You may also find that your engine has two timing belts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzT9zlbn5Z4

Edited by paintman on Friday 8th February 16:32

Yes, and many of them have one utterly ridiculous wet belt inside the engine....which usually fail long before the recommended service interval, and often dont get changed because mechanics either dont know or cant be bothered.

[paintman]

Which is why I posted the link

What with this & other design lunacy & having just had to take a bumper off to change a sidelight bulb I sometimes wonder what the designers are on.

Edited by paintman on Saturday 9th February 21:58