Cambelt failure - which engines break?

SOHC models - Yes.

Only old and inefficient ones.

when serviced as per schedules it is very rare for a belt to break or fail, there are very few modern designs which will survive a belt failure. look in autodata for likelihood for the model you think of buying.

mrcheerful

Fiat FIRE engines (later Uno's, Panda's, early Punto's - probably some others too)

If it's a Ford Mondeo Diesel the correct service schedule is not in the owners book and probably not the Haynes manual. It's on the update to a technical service bulletin that they keep locked in the service centers managers desk. When your belt breaks at 37K miles they produce it and say "Don't you know? It's not 60K miles like it says in the owners manual you got with the car, it's been changed and this says it was reduced first to 48K but now it's 36K miles". "Your mistake not having it changed at the right time, that will be £800 please".

Why? what difference does it make now? are you going to be buying one that doesn't suffer damage?

Ford 2.0 pinto engines and I think the later 1.6 pintos too.

Darren

Pointless, since there will always be another herd further upstream, besides yak piss makes it tangy.

My old Mark II astra was like this. Had it snap at 54,000 while it was still a company car serviced at a vauxhall dealer. Changed it every 20,000 afterwards when it beloned to me as it was so easy to do on that SV engine (£12 a time). Never caused any damage though at all if it broke.

John

Most, if not all modern engines will suffer damage due to their design, in that the piston to valve clearance is a very close tollerence so as to make is as fuel efficient as possible for emissions reasons etc..

Yes it is. It's done 150K (of which I've done the last 12K or so).

It seems a bit noisier know than it used to. Although this may just be my imagination.

Thanks all for the info.