Not a skoda but today at work a girl asked me some advice on a car she was thinking of buying as her 2003 Ford fusion 1.4 tdci went bang on the M1 yesterday on her way to work,the cambelt had snapped,it turns out it was the original cambelt........12 years old & had covered 218000 miles.......makes the 4 year VAG rule look a bit silly!  She has owned the car from new & had it serviced every year but not always by the same garage yet none of them ever mentioned the cambelt being due a replacement,i didnt believe her at first but she bought the mass of service paperwork in & yup no cambelt replacement in 12 years & 218000 miles.......wow. 

Wow!

Imagine how much longer it could of done if she'd replaced it though haha.

Wow!

Imagine how much longer it could of done if she'd replaced it though haha.

She was going to replace the car next year as it was getting a bit rusty in places & had a few battle scar's on it. 

She was going to replace the car next year as it was getting a bit rusty in places & had a few battle scar's on it.

Haha.

Sounds like she has no choice now lol

Haha.

Sounds like she has no choice now lol

Bring it down here and bodge a new engine in with cable ties

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Holy jesus... i have to say, it proves thatshe mustve always driven it reasonably conservativly and with a fair amount of mechanical sympathy despite the scars... if it was ragged it probably wouldve gone kabluey 6yrs ago...

IMHO that 4 year rule is a load of cr*p, as I've never had to replace a cambelt due to age only mileage.

 

The only exception to that for me would be if the vehicle has been parked up and unused.

Thats not bad going at all,

 

Well its not considering volvo use the same engine but the 1.6 version and have reduced the change intervals due to few early failures, (87500miles or 7 years)

I always find it strange how different manufactures have different canbelt service intervals. VAG has 4 years or 60k miles (even heard 40k miles), where as others have 5, 6 or 8 years for change. Ford says 10 years or 100k miles. Are the belts built differently for longer life?

 

I've read the new Ford ecoboost engines has a cambelt fitted for life! Everybody thinks oil contamination is bad, but these actually run in a bath of oil.

Some of the Ford diesel engines also have a lower timing belt (used to be a chain) that sits in oil,some garages are only changing the upper belt thinking that its still a chain fitted to the lower part,my pal at Ford says it takes them a full day to replace both belts now,not a cheap job,the interval is 125000 miles but they are seeing some fail before then. 

Yeah, a garage fitted a new Contitech belt on my car and said that it had to be changed after 60k km. Contitech says that its timing interval is as said in the service book - 180k km...

?....

 

I've read the new Ford ecoboost engines has a cambelt fitted for life! Everybody thinks oil contamination is bad, but these actually run in a bath of oil.

Same as our Pug 1.2

I seem to recall starts are the hardest on belts.

Personally I would be annoyed that having paid for services for 12 years not one of them had picked up on the cam belt! Similar thing happened to my dads Volvo years ago, he sued the garage who failed to replace the belt and thus follow the published service schedule. Garage held out till the court date then rolled over and forked out for the new engine.

If it's not the same indie, it's a bit much to put it all on them.

Maybe she was told "next service" but went to another and so on.

Usually they are a b..... of a job for which you have to prepare and allow time for.