Omega - cam belt - engine destroyed - any come-back?

You are 35000 miles late I am afraid.

Vauxhall cam belt changes:

This can range from 4 years or 40,000 miles (whichever is sooner) to 8 years or 80,000 miles (whichever is sooner).

These are recommendations rather than guarantees and represent the maximum period between changes.

Whilst these intervals can be comfortably achieved in most instances, Vauxhall recommends that the 4 years or 40,000 miles change interval should be adopted for all 16 valve and 24 valve petrol engines as 'best practice'.

Indeed; so I've just found out. But Vauxhall reduced it from 8/80k in March '03 so it should have been picked up at the 60,000 service which was after that.

More information received, which I won't go into, makes the story sadder; I think I'm going to end up paying.

So next question: it makes little sense to put a new engine in a car with 75,000 miles on the suspension and transmission, and which I'll probably get rid of around 90,000. Is there such a thing as a reconditioned engine? Or what would anyone advise?

Henry Law < Manchester, England

According to my local Vx garages, they have been insisting on 36, or 40k change intervals (depending on year and engine) for about 2 years now, having had many an engine blow up following early demise of the belt, usually caused by tensioner bearings seizing and throwing off the belt.

You may have recourse from Vauxhall, though I expect they'll say no and ask why you didnt have belt changed at the right interval.

Tim..

In message , Henry Law writes

If your garage is a Vauxhall main dealer then you may have some joy by contacting Vauxhall and pointing out that the dealer didn't service your car in accordance with their recommendations.

Better to find an engine from an accident damaged car. It costs a lot of money to recondition an engine properly and most recon engines are just worn out engines that have been cleaned up and painted. If you can find a low mileage Omega with rear end damage you will be fine.

Belt snapped on my old mans Meastro, no damage, snapped on a neighbours Vaux Vectra and nearly a grand of damage.

One of my chains rattle a little and thinking of 'chain'ging it........

I bet you will.

I have an old Lada Riva, which I've had for 15 years now. It's an old single OHC design, in which the camshaft is driven by a hefty duplex chain. This usually lasts the life of the engine (mine's been on there for 15 years and

85k miles now), and rarely suffers wear or stretching. Even in cases where it does, it'll rattle like hell long before it actually breaks, so you do at least get warning that it needs changing long before things go bang.

I also have a Megane which is just coming up to the 5 year life of the cambelt. It's got the DOHC K4M engine, on which it looks like a total sod to change the cambelt - no way I'm going to attempt that myself. I'm now looking at a bill for about 420 quid at a dealer or 300 quid at an independent to deal with it. Sophisticated and powerful this engine might be, but to be quite honest, I prefer the basic fix-any-problem-with-a-hammer simplicity of the Lada...

Brian.

Why do we motorists put up with this stupid cambelt scenario with these vague recommendations as to the mileage to replace them? At least they could design engines which wouldn't be wrecked by a snapped belt and also make them easier to change. I suspect the reasons for fitting cambelts is that it's cheaper for the manufacturer and secondly makes a lot of money for garages. My Nissan Almera has a chain drive and I don't expect ever to have to replace it. I would be reluctant to buy a car fitted with a belt.

Terry D.

I had a FSO years ago, slow, overweight and pig ugly, only fault i had was the previous owner let a disk wear thin so me and a chick were whizzing around country lanes when the pads fell out, foot hit the floor and took me

4 miles to stop, i was doing about 80 at the time, scared me shitless as it was the snake pass between Sheffield and Glossop on the way to Manchester, the same thing happed one night while driving around town with some mades oggling the girls when a pad popped out, a guy picked it up and burnt his had v bad, the really funny thing was his other had was in a pot! Had a ECU fail but i once had the prop shaft come off at the back of the gear box while doing 50 mph, the shaft came thru the floor and and put a hole right under out feet, another few inch and none of us would have had legs, that actually happend due to some time before as i hit some black ice and got the car stuck on some rocks at the edge of a 50foot drop. It turned out that it bent a bolt and put a strain on it so a few months later it gave way.

I could trat that car bad and it wouldnt let me down.

The message from "JULIAN HALES" contains these words:

That'd depend on the Maestro. The 1.6 petrol was OK, the diesel most certainly isn't.

I'm changing the head gasket on mine at the moment (if I can ever get the crankshaft pulley bolt out) and of course - it's getting a new belt at the same time.

The message from "JULIAN HALES" contains these words:

Cor - that's a bit of a cop-out!

Guy King ( snipped-for-privacy@zetnet.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Unless, of course, it was returning from having bought the thing...

No, mine is only the 8 valve model - no radio!

Brian.

There is no reason to use a belt on an engine other than cheapness of manufacture. And any such savings will be well and truly lost by servicing costs in the life of the engine. BMW phased them out well over 10 years ago.

The 110k recommendation on my Volvo worries me...

The old 16 valve Lada? 8 in the engine and another 8 in the radio!

I'd try that, only I just discovered that I didn't take it to them in accordance with the recommendations either. So LegsToStandOn=0; An expensive mistake.

Good idea; thanks.

PS I should have posted this in uk.adverts.computer. Those guys are good at cars, aren't they? :-)

Henry Law < Manchester, England

Chain or belt?

Got it changed/checked yet?

Peter

In message , Henry Law writes

You could always try the old "its got a computer chip in it" chestnut :)

Keep an eye on ebay for an engine. These things do come up for auction fairly often.

I've just had a look there and ironically there's someone after a 2.0 Omega engine at the moment. He says he'll even take an engine with cambelt failure so you could flog him yours.