Driving along the motorway when i though I started to smell a very hot smell. wasnt sure if it was coming from my car or not. The temperature light then went red and the temperature needle hit the ceiling. I luckily was only a couple of hundred yards from the motorway exit so pulled off and stopped. the engine was still running at this point but i turned it off. Had a quick look under the bonnet noticing that my coolant was boiling over. I guessed at first I had blown a pipe or something. so let it cool down and tried to restart it, without any luck. recovery boys came out and have diagnosed the fault to be the fact the timing belt has snapped.

I now dont know what to do. If the timing has gone out then the valves and pistons are probably gubbed. So my guess is a second hand block could be cheaper.

Any ideas on what to do or where to get parts etc?

Cheers in advance.

don't always trust recovery guys we had same diagnosis on the van at work it was the auzilary belt.


some info to help diagnose if it is or not. what engine you got?
what noise does it make? / did make

i know the 1.2 8valves are a safe engine (meaning no damage caused)(thats if they fit em to gp's)

its a 2006 1.9 130bhp grande. the starter motor tries to kick in but it doesnt.

Think its only an 8 Valve.

the jtd isnt a safe engine, sounds like water pump went then killed cambelt
how old is the belt and how many miles has it done?

Your engine was running when you stopped.
You turned it of.
An the recovery guy says you timing belt snapped?

If that was the case the engine would'nt be running until you turned it of.
It would be stopped without your action of turning the key. Probably with a lot of noise to.

dave said:

the jtd isnt a safe engine, sounds like water pump went then killed cambelt
how old is the belt and how many miles has it done?

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I dont know. I havent replaced them in the year i have owned the car. So i doubt they will have been replaced at all. but im unsure.

If your belt snaped welcome to my world:yuck: ill see you over a grand later

17 Gav said:

I dont know. I havent replaced them in the year i have owned the car. So i doubt they will have been replaced at all. but im unsure.

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how old is the car? how many miles has it done?

Its 5 years old done 37000 miles.

it was due a belt then

Mine had a belt, tensioner, water pump and auxiliary belt at 40K- felt a lot more relaxed afterwards.
Sorry to hear your bad news.- but the belt is rubber and as we know it degrades over time regardless of miles, still a right bitch though mate.

Daver said:

Mine had a belt, tensioner, water pump and auxiliary belt at 40K- felt a lot more relaxed afterwards.
Sorry to hear your bad news.- but the belt is rubber and as we know it degrades over time regardless of miles, still a right bitch though mate.

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I'd put money on that the timing belt hasn't snapped, as engine wouldn't have been running. My guess is water pump has seized, causing coolant to stop flowing, belt to overheat, and now engine is off timing has gone out of sync possibly damaging valves and pistons.

Sorry to hear your miss fortune. Water pump failure is a known issue with the 1.9jtd hence people often replace it at the same time as the cam belt.

It sounds like there is hope though. I'd take it to a good independent mechanic and ask him to take the head off to check the valves and pistons. I'd also ask him to check the overheat hasn't done any damage to the block etc.

You may save it yet!

I would think that before paying to take the head off, you check whether the timing belt has actually broken and if not, whether the timing is still aligned correctly.

As mentioned above, if the engine was running normally (other than overheating) immediately before you switched it off, then the timing belt was not broken at the point.

Whats the schedule for the belt on the 1.9?

5 years or 60k ? Whichever comes first.

46k 4 years

That's not right, manual states 5 years 90k(servicing is 18k/year) but should be 4 years 72k under hard conditions such as short journeys, remap etc

I'm having mine in march, that's 4 years and I've covered 34k so far so will be nearer 40k by then

manuals go out of date when revisions are made, you can believe in the manual and end up like the op if you wish its your choice

dave said:

manuals go out of date when revisions are made, you can believe in the manual and end up like the op if you wish its your choice

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My manual isn't out of date, and if it had, fiat haven't changed to 11.5k service intervals on the 1.9 so god knows where you get 46 k From. It's 4 years or 72k