cambelt trouble - no!!!! fan belt wrecks engine!!!!!

[carrsy]

cam belt changed two months ago , the drive belt shreds (well frays on one side) and the steel cabling inside it wraps itself round one of the cambelt pulleys(pre tensioners?) slows the cam belt down and the result - exactly the same as if the cam belt had snapped - £900 f***ing pounds- now ive had "fan belts" go before but none have ever resulted in this sort of damage - do fiat mention to check your fan belt every seven miles or so or do you think i could attempt to get the b@stards to look at this as a major design flaw and ask their head office for some cash!???

anyone else had this happen (fiat marea 100TD in case anyone was wondering)

 

[Anonymous]

**** you have my sympathies
My Bravo started making a knocking/ticking noise which turned out to be one of those tensioners at fault. caught it just in time and had the ppulley and belt changed

You're a brave man mentioning design faults here

 

[Alan]

Re: Re: cambelt trouble - no!!!! fan belt wrecks engine!!!!!

i don't think you could claim anything. The bravo has been out for a long time now and this is the first time i have heard of this happening. You could try taking on fiat but that will coust you serious £££ and whether you win or lose you'll still be out of pocket by 100x what the job is worth!

 

[Tom]

Re: Re: Re: cambelt trouble - no!!!! fan belt wrecks engine!!!!!

As Fiat don't make the belts then it can't REALLY be their fault.

Did they change the drive belts when they did the cambelt?

 

[carrsy]

re belts

Tom,

not sure if the drivebelts were changed at the same time as the cambelt- the garage ( rightly) stated that i have done 5K miles since they changed the belt so it would have gone wrong before that if it had been the result of their work( but they would say that I suppose) .The really annoyong thing is that like i said i checked the drive belt earlier that day because of the overheating issue and 67 miles later the thing is half its width,frayed and i have no top end of my engine left!!

 

[Tom]

Re: re belts

Whats the age and milage on the car? The drive belts are rubber just like the cambelt and suffer the same decay due to age. You could still claim the garage should have changed them.

Are the alternator, PAS pump and aircon pump OK? One of them may have seized.

 

[Tom]

Re: re belts

Can you add your details to the "Bravo faults - the BIG list" thread please.

 

[Alan]

Re: Re: re belts

surely you could only blame the garage if either you asked the belt to be changed or it should have been changed on the service schedule?

 

[Tom]

Re: Re: Re: re belts

Depends if there were signs of wear. 5k miles is not a long time in the life of a belt, you expect them to last well over 10x that. Will have to check the service schedule.

 

[carrsy]

as requested

Tom,
its on the big faults list now

dave,

 

[Tom]

Re: as requested

Thats a few miles!

So the cambelt was done at 118k? When was it done first time?

 

[carrsy]

Re: Re: as requested

i was told it was done at around 36k ( when I got the car ) - and I know I should have got around to it a bit sooner - but look what happened after I did !!!!!!