Good place to replace the Cam-Belt of my Ford Escort

Hi,

I plan to bring my 1998 Ford-Escort 1600 Estate to the garage for Servicing.

I got a quote from an official Ford Garage who gave me these quotes all inclusive :

Annual Service : 170£ Optional replacement of the Anti-Freeze Fluid and of the Brakes Fluid : 89£ Replacement of the cambelt (suggested as soon as the car is 5 years old and mine is 6 years) : 270£

I wonder if all if this is a rip-off as it looks very expensive.

Is there a better way to have my car serviced, e.g at a lower price and with still a good quality of service ? My concern with using a non-Ford garage is that perhaps a non-Ford technician might not be able to control and fix all the things which are specific to the Ford make. Is this worry founded in my case ?

Reply to
Pierre-Philippe Ravier
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In message , Pierre-Philippe Ravier writes

One of the Ford dealers local to me publish cambelt prices on their web site. They quote £220 for your car and that's for a cambelt kit, i.e. belt and tensioners.

Price for standard service is £98 or £148 for a major service. Brake fluid change is £26. All prices quoted are parts and labour and inclusive of VAT.

Sounds like your dealer is rather pricey.

Reply to
Paul Giverin

In article , Pierre-Philippe Ravier Tue, 10 Aug 2004 10:04:01 writes

Normally prices quoted by main dealers are all + parts so you will end up with an even larger bill!

When my Scorpio 2.0i was about 5 years old I was landed with a £900 bill for a "standard" service at a main Ford dealer and decided never again.

Since then I had it serviced by a mechanic working in my road and have had no problems (nor large bills).

The car is now 12 years old (my son has had it for the last two years).

I would suggest you find a well recommended local small garage or one-man-band.

I think the Escort must be a very easy car to work with and my guess is it should cost you more like

£90 service £30 fluid replacement £100 cam belt
Reply to
Les Desser

In message , Pierre-Philippe Ravier writes

Of course. That's why franchised dealers charge so much more.

A good non-franchised garage will do a better job than most franchises, but the problem is finding one. Word of mouth is the usual route, but of course when you need this you can't find anyone who will recommend a really good garage/tree surgeon/decorator etc.

Where did you buy the car? Used car dealers have a lot of work done by a garage that they trust, rather than doing the work themselves. If it's an Arthur Daley (the TV character, not the used car dealers who inexplicably choose to call themselves this) then the garage may also be suspect. What you want is the tame garage of a good-quality used car dealer. Prices will somewhere between franchises and Daley's man.

There are a few national garage chains, such as Halfords and Lex. They are not necessarily great for technically difficult jobs, but there are large organisations backing them, they need a good brand image, and there is some hope of redress if things go wrong. Both backstreet garages and manufacturers' franchises can be reluctant to sort things out afterwards.

The AA, RAC and presumably other motoring organisations recommend garages, which are likely to be excellent but not much cheaper than a franchise holder. Many of them *are* franchise holders.

You pays yer money....

Reply to
Joe

I had my 1991 1600 (8v CVH) changed a few years ago for =A350, at a main Fo= rd=20 Dealer.

Sounds like a piss-take for me.

A cam kit for my 2.0 Mondeo (16v) is =A380. That's the tensioners, replacem= ent=20 water pulley belts, the cam, everything needed.

Found an independed who changed it for a couple of hours labour.

Pete.

--=20 NOTE! Email address is spamtrapped. Any email will be bounced to you Remove the news and underscore from my address to reply by mail

Reply to
Pete Smith

Huh! All I can say is I had two MAJOR car issues in my experience as a result of inadequacies with one "NATIONAL" garage chain, as a previous customer of theirs.

(Their name may (or maybe not) be common with the surname of a well known heavy metal singer ??? Do you get who I mean? As I am not going to spell it out.)

They a/ Left wheel bolts "loose" on a 2.0 large injected car which could have led to a nasty accident ( I was redressed by that particular site with a free service, but nothing compared to what COULD have happened). My evidence was confirmed by a breakdown visit report. The branch were very apologetic though and very keen to resolve, so I was left fairly happy given this.

SECONDLY, and worse for me was the LEAMINGTON SPA branch who were nothing but a bunch of bloody amateurs.

I can only hope that in having somewhat changed direction, they are somewhat better in what they do. Basically, my Fiesta had the WRONG plugs inserted in them (not my fault - they should have checked the engine against the plugs/old plugs to be fitted!). I may not have known the exact vehicle when I booked it in - but that's THEIR responisbility to determine, not mine.

THEN I suffered the consequence as they basically poked with it without really fixing it (they put head together but a few months on it got really noisy etc), but woudnt really do much to actually fix it, it really needed a replacement engine at that point and was around 40k ish. They did not take responsibility and acted like a bunch of bloody idiots rather than treating me a customer of a service they provided. I avoided really bothering at that point as I managed to trade it in for a better car. Just as well otherwise I WOULD have taken legal action for sure. I was again offered a free service, but I haven't seen anything from them - and I'd question if I really wanted them anywhere near any car of mine again.

I wont EVER use them again even through re-branding (I am sure you know who I mean), and I think the statement you made was certainly not true of them at that point - lets hope they've changed a little and its not all in just a name, but I wont ever be finding that out - Im sticking my dealer or smaller known reputable repairers.

I would really only expect to get a quality service through a smaller, more personal and keen local mechanic - and I've used a few in that respect that have been excellent and of course it pays to stick with them - going by personal experience is a good thing. The big brands might pretend to care, and in some circumstances may cough up or take interest on their faults, but it cant be guaranteed. I like to do a lot of work myself now too - least you know what you are doing.

Tone

Reply to
TonyF

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