PIG!

do it yourself you wuss

only take an hour including time for a brew ;) :)

buy a haynes and get stuck in

You've done one?

It doesn't look that easy - big metal engine mounting as the top cover...

Richard

According to Autodata it's a 2.3 hour job, plus £35 for a belt and tensioner from GSF.

------------------------------------- Removal

1. Raise and support front of vehicle.
2. Support engine.
3. Remove: o Auxiliary drive belt(s). o Engine mounting (Clio/Kangoo). o Timing belt covers [1]. o RH inner wing panel. o Crankshaft pulley [2].
4. Turn crankshaft clockwise until camshaft sprocket timing mark [3] aligned with rib on cylinder head cover and crankshaft sprocket timing mark [4] aligned. NOTE: Some camshaft sprockets have multiple markings* Use rectangular timing mark adjacent to 'E1-E3' lettering.
5. Slacken tensioner pulley nut [5]. Move tensioner pulley away from belt and lightly tighten nut.
6. Remove timing belt.

--------------------------------------

Why bother with the hassle or cost of replacing the timing belt on a £300 quid car? Just run it till it breaks or you find something different.

Because it could snap next time he / she takes it out, which is £300 down the drain.

Spending £100-£120 now on replacing the belt will ensure the car not only makes it through the winter, but also means it'll still be worth at least 300 quid when he sells it next year.

Running cars at that sort of price I'd expect that occasionally.

There's no guarantee that something else won't fail, and on that age of clio it's likely to be soon and expensive. £50 for the parts and time just doesn't make sense to me as the belt isn't that likely to break in

Yea I'm with you on this one, just run it till it breaks - if it does it does, shit happens, if it doesn't, then it's still worth £300 when you come to sell it on.

You're ignoring the fact that a cambelt, if it is going to break, is going to do it at 3am in the middle of nowhere where there's no phone signal.

Remember, the kind of places Richard goes are likely to be the kind of places where you can drive for an hour without either seeing someone else or getting a phone signal.

Catford?

Cos if it breaks in the snow, out on the moor, in the dark, down a hole, in the fog, with an owl, and he has to get out his scratcher and go and pick his GF up, he'll wish he'd just replaced the bloody belt.

(c:

What, cambelts snapping? I'd expect the occasional breakdown on a car in that price bracket, but there's absolutely no point whatsoever in ignoring something as crucial as a cambelt on any car, be it £200 worth or £20k worth.

What would you expect to fail then?

I'd do both.

I spy, with my little eye, a quote from some moderately high velocity comedy sketch show there, I do.

Because I'm not a retard?

If I replace it, the £300 car will last (more than) the Winter (and what do you think I can sell an N-reg Clio with well under 100,000 miles, no body damage, very recent tyres, and a full MOT for in six months)?

Richard

If you don't replace it it'll probably last just as well. I'm of the firm belief that people are overly paranoid about cambelts and most will last much longer than the recommended change intervals. Probably about £400 max. A mate got a N reg one as a spare runabout for £100 last week with 6 months t&t which is pretty clean and has done 80k.

No just repairs that cost a high percentage of the cars value so it's not worth doing them. There's lots of decent old cars about now so it's easy to move on. Cambelts tend to last longer than the intervals as if they didn't manufacturers would have far to many warranty claims. I'd feel comfortable adding at least another 20% on top of the interval on a cheap car unless it's known for premature cambelt failure in which case I probably wouldn't buy it.

It's french so anything. My dad had a 1.4 rt which was the most unreliable car that's been in my family (and he likes Alfas). The worst I can remember was a small part in the gearbox failing (

But this is 100% past it's interval

It's likely to have had one cambelt change around 5 years ago so I'd personally take the chance.

my work here is done...

I disagree - if you buy a banger and maintain it it should lose next to no money, so your only costs are maintenance, fuel and insurance/tax. Far better to get a reputable independant to do a belt change for 100-200 quid than to lose a days work broken down in the middle of winter, or have it fail in lane 3 of the M6 at peak time.

Annoys the hell out of me every time I'm in a queue caused by some ones car that's suffering from some probably avoidable breakdown - I had a belt fail early on in my driving life in a Nissan Sunny (120k miles, well over interval) and since then have never skimped on maintenance.