Cambelt question

[Slashmb]

Evening all,

I was at the mother-in-law's earlier today and while I was there she was on the phone to get her car booked in for a service.

They asked her if she wanted to have the cambelt changed as the car is 5 years old and quoted about £380 for the full service with the belt change. The thing is the car has only done 12,000 miles so does it really need doing and would you risk not having it done.

I know they do degrade with age and not just mileage but surely it'll be ok.

Its a Clio Campus 1.2 btw.

[ollie854]

Id personally get it done regardless of mileage.

[Dracoro]

I would change it.

Rubber either wears (from lots of use) or perishes over time (more rapidly if the car is rarely used - rubber rarely moves so hardens I think)

£380 for belt and service seems a good price, many cars need a fair amount of labour for a belt change (Audi I'm looking at you!!)

[Lotus 50]

Important to remember that cambelts have a time expiry as well as mileage - in this instance the 5 years is what counts not the low miles.

Craig

[MG CHRIS]

I wouldnt have thought the cambelt would need changing that soon on a clio not 100% sure though. I would of thought it was more like 7-8 years or 70000 miles something like that somebody should be along to tell you the right time it should be cahnged. However if the timing belt snaps you are looking at a much higher bill for new valves which means head off which can cost alot if they bend or worse case new engine.

[jagracer]

MG CHRIS said:

I wouldnt have thought the cambelt would need changing that soon on a clio not 100% sure though. I would of thought it was more like 7-8 years or 70000 miles something like that somebody should be along to tell you the right time it should be cahnged. However if the timing belt snaps you are looking at a much higher bill for new valves which means head off which can cost alot if they bend or worse case new engine.

It's 5 years or 70K. That price doesn't seem too unreasonable as they are a pig to do and probably take 2-3 hours plus the service time.

[JonnyFive]

That price seems very good if that is actually the bottom line cost.. Very good.

[DaveL86]

Dracoro said:

I would change it.

Rubber either wears (from lots of use) or perishes over time (more rapidly if the car is rarely used - rubber rarely moves so hardens I think)

£380 for belt and service seems a good price, many cars need a fair amount of labour for a belt change (Audi I'm looking at you!!)

As above, pretty good price from a main dealer! I have been quoted above £500 in the past from VW so I now use a VAG specialist who charge closer to £350 inc water pump replacement.

[catman]

When you compare the cost of replacing the belt, with the cost if it breaks, it's a no-brainer!

Tim

[vonhosen]

You need water pump done at the same time.

[robsco]

For £380, its a no-brainer. Prevention is better than the cure.

[jsg612]

I think a rarely used, perished belt would be more prone to failure than a regularly used high miler. For the sake of a couple hundred quid extra, get it done - It's cheaper than a new engine.

[jagracer]

vonhosen said:

You need water pump done at the same time.

At 12K, I doubt it, my wife's Clio is on 90K and second belt with original WP

[Leveret]

Ah...such caution! Cambelts are not made of rubber. They are amazingly strong and unstretchable, and designed to last far longer than the recommended change interval. The best should last the life of the engine. I never change them if they look OK. They only snap or wear if the things they drive interfere with them - e.g. disintegrating tension pulleys; stiff bearings a few thousand miles before they fail - if they don't fry the belt first.
My record is over 240,000 on a Passat 2.0GL - had to change the whining tension pulley at around 160,000 but belt looked OK so left well alone. Still going strong-ish when I sold it. The one on my current car [1998 Audi 2.8 >100,000] looks perfect - and only slightly smaller than belts I've seen driving the wheel of a BMW motorbike. Even Ford allows 10yrs ...and I've no intention of changing ours [Focus - 11yrs and counting...]

If it works, don't mend it!

[K87]

Agree,just put the second belt on my xantia, original went up to 130k and 13 years old, still looked fine and survived a huge chunk of rubber being pulled into it!

[Slashmb]

Thanks for replies chaps.

I had a cambelt snap on my car about 10 years ago. It should have been done at 70,000 miles and it snapped at 70,124. I had no intention of changing it but £17 later for the new belt, a Haynes manual and about 4 hours one saturday afternoon all was well again. Lucky to get away with it.

I understand that the Renault 1.2 is an interference engine so maybe I should be telling the MIL to get the belt done. I'm nearly tempted to say I'll do it for her but if I screw it up it's not my car. Are they hard to do on a Clio?

[MondeoMan1981]

Might as well do the aux belt at the same time, see if they will throw that in for free..

[VeeFour]

Leveret said:

Ah...such caution! Cambelts are not made of rubber. They are amazingly strong and unstretchable, and designed to last far longer than the recommended change interval. The best should last the life of the engine. I never change them if they look OK. They only snap or wear if the things they drive interfere with them - e.g. disintegrating tension pulleys; stiff bearings a few thousand miles before they fail - if they don't fry the belt first.
My record is over 240,000 on a Passat 2.0GL - had to change the whining tension pulley at around 160,000 but belt looked OK so left well alone. Still going strong-ish when I sold it. The one on my current car [1998 Audi 2.8 >100,000] looks perfect - and only slightly smaller than belts I've seen driving the wheel of a BMW motorbike. Even Ford allows 10yrs ...and I've no intention of changing ours [Focus - 11yrs and counting...]

If it works, don't mend it!

That is quite possibly the worst advice I've seen on PH this week.

Anyway, it's often not the belt that fails, as you have said it's the pulleys / tensioners / water pumps etc. that often cause the problem.

What I don't understand is why you'd change a tensioner without replacing the belt? - you're either an idiot or you're not being entirely truthful.

(If you believe it's not worth doing - have a look at the number of cars being sold with snapped belts out there)

[thunderbelmont]

Leveret said:

Ah...such caution! Cambelts are not made of rubber. They are amazingly strong and unstretchable, and designed to last far longer than the recommended change interval. The best should last the life of the engine. I never change them if they look OK. They only snap or wear if the things they drive interfere with them - e.g. disintegrating tension pulleys; stiff bearings a few thousand miles before they fail - if they don't fry the belt first.
My record is over 240,000 on a Passat 2.0GL - had to change the whining tension pulley at around 160,000 but belt looked OK so left well alone. Still going strong-ish when I sold it. The one on my current car [1998 Audi 2.8 >100,000] looks perfect - and only slightly smaller than belts I've seen driving the wheel of a BMW motorbike. Even Ford allows 10yrs ...and I've no intention of changing ours [Focus - 11yrs and counting...]

If it works, don't mend it!

You've never owned a Vauxhall/Opel then?? Mrs Thunderbelmonts previous poxy Zafira had a 80K interval, but it snapped at 63K resulting in a new head and a £1600 dent in the pocket. Vauxhall had changed the interval to 40K, and told the original buyers, who chose to ignore it, and when we bought it from a lease company, they didn't tell us.

Her "new" Octavia L&K TDi has a 4 year/80000(?) interval, and it's just been done at 57K because it's 4 years old.

The Ford TDCI engine is a Pug HDI in disguise and has a 150,000 change interval, though I have seen one on a 307 that's done 70K showing signs of the teeth cracking - best change it!!

My T5 has a 90K change interval, and having done almost 183,000 miles, we set about it today, though some nice person obviously did the bottom pulley nut up to 4TTFT and it wouldn't come undone - even with a 3/4drive air gun on it - and broke the locking tool when we used a straight breaker bar!! I'm going to see about getting a genuine Volvo locking tool - which I hope is more robust, and then have one more try. If that fails, then I feel like taking it to the Volvo dealers and let them sort it out on one of their fixed price jobs!!!

Belts are cheap enough, so better safe than sorry.

It's not like the old days of Ford Pinto's which had a change interval of "when they break" - thankfully they weren't an interference engine so you could get away with it.

My next car will be a pushrod OHV lump, so I couldn't care less.

[Deva Link]

Leveret said:

The best should last the life of the engine.

This is true - the belt manufacturers do they they are capable of lasting the life of the engine.

However, this is likely to be self-fulfilling! If the belt goes on an old car with an interference engine then it's likely to render the car beyond economic repair.