Hi there guys,

I purchased my second Fabia Mk1 10 days ago, it's a 1.2 comfort 64bhp 53reg, which I have been assured is chain driven, by the seller and also by the mechanic who I got a new MOT on it from. However there is a belt on the right hand side of the engine (from drivers seat perspective), which looks awfully like the cambelt (which went on my 1.4 a while back. I'm not the most in the know with the components in the engine, but have been told by a friend that it's probably a fanbelt.

The only reason that I'm checking this is that on morning starts I've had 3 days where it's taken a long time to get the car started. From a bit of research it sounds like it's either the battery or alternator causing the problem. But today after 5 minutes trying to get it started, it burst into life, but when driving I noticed a slight high pitch rattle when I revved. When I arrived at where I was going I opened the bonnet and revved the engine again and it sounded like this noise was coming from the belt. Any ideas on why this may be or anything to do with the belt would be greatly appreciated.

Whilst I'm here, I thought I might also ask one more question. When I'm idling at traffic lights in neutral when the lights are taking a long time, the idling revs are low enough to make the car feel like it's about to stall and in some cases it does actually stall. It idles at about 700 RPM but like I say has the stalling shudder to it a lot of the time. From reading around a number of people have suggested a slight alteration to raise the idle RPM, but any advice from anyone on here would probably be much more useful.

Sorry for dragging on, and thank you in advance for any help!

That belt is the fan/Auxillary belt! The 1.2HTP's do have a timing/cam chain as oppose to timing belt.

 

This does not mean that it will never suffer a timing chain failure!

 

Have no idea about the rest :( 

Thanks for the reply! The belt was my most significant worry if I'm honest. As for the rest, no worries. And thanks again!

Best to get it scanned and see what fault codes come up. Might be a dodgy sensor or something.

The chain can stretch over time and considering yours is now eleven years old I'd get it replaced. A stretched chain can cause timing issues I learned the other day.