JNAnderson said:

Thank you. Will I definitely be ok driving it until Saturday without it packing in?

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No one can give you a definite guarantee, but personally I wouldn't be stressing about it. If you are concerned, avoid hard acceleration and keep the revs below 3000.

It's a bit like having high blood pressure; the risk of a disastrous event is increased, but it's still not likely to happen tomorrow. It's important to get it sorted, but not desperately urgent. You'd likely want to avoid high stress activities in either case until it's fixed.

Unless of course you're looking at >200/120 or a cambelt unchanged in 20 years.

Super Uwe said:

All the Fiats I have owned from 2009 onwards state the timing belt should be changed every 5 years or 60,000 miles (this is for petrol 1.2 or 1.4 8v engines).

If your car is low mileage and does less than 6,000 miles per year, the manual says it should be done every 4 years. Either way the information for your car should be in the manual.

Obviously the belts CAN still go on past that time, but it is a bit of a "ticking time-bomb". You wouldn't want to be the person who tried to drag it out a bit longer to save a few quid...

I need to get the belts and water pump done on my Punto later this year, amazing how quick year 5 comes around!

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This is where the confusion comes in as my local Fiat dealer said "why would you want to change it yet (5.5 years) it's every seven"? Anyway it's going in Fri and will see what the old belt looks like.

Its a worry you don't need and my advice would be to get it done .I bought a Fiat 500 1.2 with only 17,050 miles on the clock and the car was 6years old. I only do 3 to 4000 miles a year but all the advice was get it done and I did Fiat replacement belt and water pump. Now no worries in that area !
Regards
Ian

Definitely my thoughts. If I don't get it done I'll stress out constantly worrying that it's going to break and I can't afford a few thousand pounds on a new engine. Can't wait to get it done and know that's it forca long time x

My local fiat specialist stated the 1.2 engine in my 63plate is a non interference engine, if the belt snaps it's an inconvenience not a disaster!
Other than this the belt is replaced somewhere between 4-5 years is ideal

HOw do they check if that's what mines is?

p6baseunit said:

My local fiat specialist stated the 1.2 engine in my 63plate is a non interference engine, if the belt snaps it's an inconvenience not a disaster!
Other than this the belt is replaced somewhere between 4-5 years is ideal

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The accepted wisdom is that the 69hp 1.2 used in the Fiat 500 IS an interference engine. Plenty of supporting information on here and Chrysler Ypsilon and Ford Ka forums.

p6baseunit said:

My local fiat specialist stated the 1.2 engine in my 63plate is a non interference engine, if the belt snaps it's an inconvenience not a disaster!

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All the evidence we have says that your independent specialist is wrong.

The 1.2 FIRE stopped being a non-interference engine with the introduction of VVT. To the best of my knowledge, all 500's use VVT engines.

You know funnily enough we have not had a timing belt failure as far as I can remember on this forum! I wonder who the first will be. (hope its not me I am on my 4th year and 55,000 km's or so on my 2nd timing belt! I plan on doing it Autumn 2018.

ahmett said:

You know funnily enough we have not had a timing belt failure as far as I can remember on this forum! I wonder who the first will be. (hope its not me I am on my 4th year and 55,000 km's or so on my 2nd timing belt! I plan on doing it Autumn 2018.

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Let's hope our (suspected ) Sept 2009 belt lasts till this Friday !

jrkitching said:

All the evidence we have says that your independent specialist is wrong.

The 1.2 FIRE stopped being a non-interference engine with the introduction of VVT. To the best of my knowledge, all 500's use VVT engines.

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Thanks duly noted... My car will be 5 in Sept 2018 so I will get it done by then.
Its currently done 14500miles

ahmett said:

You know funnily enough we have not had a timing belt failure as far as I can remember on this forum!

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That's impressive! I couldn't see much/any info on the Ford sites for these engines with prematurely failed cambelts either

jrkitching said:

Unless of course you're looking at >200/120 or a cambelt unchanged in 20 years.

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I had a Suzuki in the family for 20 years (50k miles) on the original Tbelt, visual inspection showed that it still looked like new when I briefly inherited the car, so I let it be.

Maybe not a good idea with European belts though.

ahmett said:

You know funnily enough we have not had a timing belt failure as far as I can remember on this forum!

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I can't recall one on a petrol FIRE either, but it could happen and the cost of replacement seems a small price to pay for the peace of mind.

There have been plenty of snapped chains on the mJet; diesel owners take note that not having a cambelt doesn't exempt you from camshaft drive failure.

Timing belt now changed, £158 in total.

Thanks for all help.

JNAnderson said:

Timing belt now changed, £158 in total.

Thanks for all help.

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Did this include the waterpump? If so, a good price.

It did £98 for the part and £60 for his time doing it.

Ours now changed, the old one didn't look that bad no cracks or anything interestingly Fiat don't replace the water pump, I found out at collection

John202020 said:

Ours now changed, the old one didn't look that bad no cracks or anything interestingly Fiat don't replace the water pump, I found out at collection

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Concerning the waterpump, no, for some bizarre reason, lots of garages won't offer to replace the waterpump during cambelt change and many mechanics are fully aware of the consequences of a failing waterpump and many know of failures that have ultimately ended up in the shredding of the cambelt and the damage subsquently caused to engines because of failure.

Considering the waterpump doesn't actually cost a huge amount of money and seeing as it is relatively easy to change at cambelt change, then to be honest swapping out the old waterpump for a new one, should be considered as essential, but alas there are some pretty poor mechanics out there. When I had the cambelt replaced on my Fiat engined Saab 9-3, I'd already bought a brand new waterpump, but even before asking for a waterpump replacement, the independent Fiat Master Technician who did the job specifically asked me if I wanted a new waterpump fitted because he knew that failures were common. He was pleased I had the foresight to want the waterpump replacing. As it turned out, the old waterpump was already starting to leak, we caught it just in time.

John202020 said:

Ours now changed, the old one didn't look that bad no cracks or anything interestingly Fiat don't replace the water pump, I found out at collection

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I didn't see mine but asked him when collecting my car how old one looked - he said like it wasn't even old, but said I was still better to have had it changed.