Cam Belt Change on HGT

[Damian]

Next week my local Fiat dealer are going to change the head gasket on my Bravo HGT. Luckily this is covered under the warranty that came with the car. At the same time they recommend changing the cam belts and have said if anything goes wrong with them subsequent to the messing around and taking the head off they will not take responsibility. For this they estimate an extra 6 hours work which I will have to pay for as is it not covered under warranty. Is this a realistic estimate or are they trying to recover some of the money involved in changing the head? Does anyone know how much it costs to get the cam belts changed by a non fiat dealer?

Thanks in advance.

Damian

 

[Phil Lee]

cam belt

Damian

Why do you need to change your head gasket? what is the year and mileage on it? I am nearing 40k on my HGT and thinking of getting it sorted. If you are anywhere in the 50k - 70k mark, then definitely get it done, otherwise it takes a recommended 13hrs to get it sorted out seperately as they need to drop the engine out. Damage caused by faulty cam belts run into the £000s and is never the same again

 

[Damian]

Head Gasket

The reason the head gasket needs changing is as follows. I took the car for a service two weeks ago and the dealer (My local dealer was too busy) said that their might be a slight leak of oil from the gearbox and it needs looking at. I then took the car back to my local dealer. Upon further investigation they have found that the oil leak is actually oil leaking from the head and dripping down over the gearbox. I was then quoted £370 (6 hours labour) to change the cam belts while they were fixing the head gasket under warranty. I agree that it is sensible to get them changed as the main dealer price for the next service is a whopping £925. I just wondered if there was anyone out there thought that the £370 was an acceptable price for changing the cam belts or the dealer might be over charging me and trying to get some of the money back they will spend on taking the head off my car. The dealer also said due to previous problems with other customers if they carry out the work to the head and don't change the cam belts they will not be held responsible if they break. I would have thought it would be a relatively easy job to change the cam belts with the head off the car as you need to move them to get the head off anyway??


Damian

 

[Sandro]

Untitled

Normally when you have to replace the head gasket as you already said, you have to remove the timing belts. As far as I am aware it is extremely dangerous to refit a used cambelt and it would be good practice to replace as a matter of course as well as all the tensioners etc. I would not have the head gasket replaced and refit used belts!!! You are simply asking for trouble! I would have the engine removed replace the head gasket and the belts and tensioners!! I know it may be expensive but then you know that if anything else goes wrong you are covered!! I work in an engine test centre and FIAT is one of my customers and i know that cambelts are a sensitive issue. They would certainly recommend what i have said.

 

[Damian]

Untitled

Do you actually have to remove the cam belts to change the head on a Bravo HGT? Are they charging me for changing the belts when they could do them at minimal cost when changing the head gasket?

 

[AHC]

head gasket repair!

It sounds like the garage are ripping you off ,when removing the head they will have to take the belts off anyway so asking you to pay extra labour to change something they will have to do anyway is a rip off .i sujest you go to another dealer who are more reliable and ask them for a second opinion ,ok it will cost you some more labour to have there opinion but at least you will have something in writing .The oil leak i would guess is more likley to be coming from someplace else i have never heard of a hgt leaking oil from the head gasket although there is always one .....How about naming the dealer im sure everyone on the forum is interested in knowing the dealers to avoid

 

[Sandro]

Untitled

As the engine has to come out for a cambelt change i imagine it would have to be the same when replacing the head gasket! That is of course if they are doing things correctly! i imagine it is possible to change the head gasket without changing the belts but that is probably why they wont guarantee the cambelt after that! because not changing a used cambelt is dangerous. I think the extra money will be for taking the engine out which is how i would replace the head gasket anyway because you can change all the necessary tensioners and belts etc. But as we all know dealers like to cut corners. Find out what they plan to do and the breakdown of the charges and then you will see what work they are planning to do.

 

[Martin]

Rip Off

Yup sond's like a bit of a rip off to me, as mentioned earlier the cam belt will have to come off to take the head off, if the belt has to come off the engine has to come out, unless they can prise the belt off and take the head off without removing the engine, if they were to do this and then prise the belt back on then I would say they are a bunch of cowboys !!!

Anyway, I am assuming that they will do the job properly, so all it should cost you is the price of the belt and tensioner and not what they are charging !

But the price they have charged extra is a lot less than doing it at a later stage.

 

[Damian]

Dealer

Alan Gibson Fiat and Alfa Romeo, Newbury.

 

[Craig]

Cambelt/Headgasket change

Firstly they are screwing you! Don't pay them to do something they have to do anyway.
Secondly I wouldn't be inclined to trust their diagnosis of your oil leak when they are pulling that kind of ****. Go somewhere else, infact go to 2 or 3 other places and get them to look and see where they think it's coming from.If it's quite a mess under the bonnet and difficult to tell where it's coming from get it cleaned off use the car for a couple of days and then investigate where it's coming from. Smell the oil yourself, gear oil has a smell completely different to engine oil.
But above all else don't let them screw you for your hard earned cash to do a job that will take them no time at all.
6 hours for something that most other garages would just do automatically when doing a head gasket is taking the ****!
Craig