Cam belt - a vehicle's Achilles heel?

[Jo May]

Took our camper in today for a cam belt. It's 5 years old and the van has done 'only' 16,000 miles.
It'll cost £600 - 700.
What a horrible, poxy, inadequate, weak link this thing is in a complex vehicle, one that, touch wood has run fine to date.
Of course, £600 would be 'cheap' if it did happen to snap. But it's scant consolation for a piece of kit that is basically not up to the job. I know they have chains now - are these changed periodically?
But whatever, the majority are rubber and integral to the just about every vehicle. You'd think that by now they'd have come up with a better system than something that needs to be changed after so little mileage?

I ponder this conundrum, and resultant hit to the wallet, on my 3-mile walk home having dropped the van off. It's a walk I normally thoroughly enjoy along the canal towpath. But my mood is rather dark, summed up when my tracky bottoms are muddied by two passing dogs that jump up - 'he's only playing', said one owner, 'sorry, he's just learning,' said the other. Learning?!
To put the tin lid on it, as it were, I got soiled by a passing duck as it crapped on my anorak!

Ruddy cam belts.

 

[Sue and Rick]

You omitted to mention that timing belt changes are a major source of extra income for workshops. The worst ones I owned being the V6 Vauxhall cars that needed a new timing belt every 4 years or 40,000 miles whichever came first. That's a lot of new timing belts over the life of a car designed for tens of thousands of miles a year of business use.

My view is that timing belts should only be permitted for non-interference engines. Wet belts banned full stop. Otherwise timing chains should be mandatory.

BBC Watchdog shines light on Ford EcoBoost wet belt problem

The problems associated with Ford EcoBoost engines have been well documented over recent years. Customers have been left with big bills and without a car due to damage caused by premature failure of the wet

garagewire.co.uk

 

[tonyidle]

But if you were going fast enough when the fibre gear stripped you got away without any damage

Mine went as I hit 80mph. 11 out of 12 valves slightly bent and an oil pump full of fibre particles. How fast is enough?

 

[gus-lopez]

**Mine went as I hit 80mph. 11 out of 12 valves slightly bent and an oil pump full of fibre particles. How fast is enough? ""

Mine was around that speed & all that was damaged was the gear.?

 

[Simonnsj]

Recently parted with £950 inc VAT to AMC near Hailsham, East Sussex to have the cambelt and water pump changed on our 2011 Hymer B544 (2.3 Multijet) - the last cambelt was changed in 2020 but we've been in some extremely cold climates (-35 and below) so thought it just not worth chancing it. Hurts parting with that sort of money but that's nothing compared to an engine rebuild!

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[BouncyBoatFolk]

The timing belt went on our old V.W. T2.5 1.6 normally aspirated, and the only thing not damaged was the aerial!!
Mike.

 

[B-JandBella]

Chains do get longer when they wear. Although they don't physically stretch, the pins and plate holes get worn and the very slight increase in play adds up over the length.

Not forgetting the sprokets they run on, wear also!
Just like any moving part, it all wears in time, a bit like me!!

As for those harping on about cam belt or cam chain, they forget that belts also stretch in time but also
snap due to them being made of RUBBER.
Rubber perishes over periods of time, so it's not just a matter of "how many miles" but "how old is the belt?".
Like rubber tyres, they also include an oil on manufacturing to make them more supple and pliable. When they dry out over time,
they start to perish and crack.

I'd prefer to spend £700 on a cam belt change than £2-3000 on a engine rebuild.

 

[B-JandBella]

Recently parted with £950 inc VAT to AMC near Hailsham, East Sussex to have the cambelt and water pump changed on our 2011 Hymer B544 (2.3 Multijet) - the last cambelt was changed in 2020 but we've been in some extremely cold climates (-35 and below) so thought it just not worth chancing it. Hurts parting with that sort of money but that's nothing compared to an engine rebuild!

Very sensible.

I always have the cam belt changed, especially when buying a second hand motor regardless.
It's always better to be safe than chancing it.
Well done, you!

 

[B-JandBella]

Ford used to do an engine with neither a cam belt or chain, I think it was the Essex V6 iirc.
The cams were driven by a gear cog.

That must have been the 4.2l at a guess?

 

[Marky146]

Listing my vehicles I forgot to mention my motorcycles! Heaven is a V4!

My 1995 750 has gear driven cams. My 2002 VFR’s original VTEC engine is a chain driven modification, but that engine sits in the corner of my garage as an ornament. It runs a 1999 FiX engine which does have the gear driven cam setup!

Trouble free and lovely to ride, with the slight whine from below. No worries of failure ever!

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[ivorantony]

That must have been the 4.2l at a guess?

As already been said, they used a Fibre gear that still stripped, I replaced quite a few in the seventies
But luckily no bent valves that I remember, and they were a 3 litre Essex,
But they had a hexagon steel shaft that drove the oil pump, this would fail so no oil pressure and blown engine if you didn’t switch off quickly,

The four cylinder CVH engine oil pump also failed regularly as did it’s timing belt but to be fair to Ford it gave me a decent living and put a roof over my head

 

[dunnah01]

The four cylinder CVH engine oil pump also failed regularly as did it’s timing belt but to be fair to Ford it gave me a decent living and put a roof over my head

Ah I remember the old CVH engines. We used to graft the CVH Escort Turbo head onto a bored 2.1l Zetec bottom end to create a ZVH Frankenstein engine. We got daft horsepower out of them and had a hoot scaring all sorts of exotica on track days in our loser blue 1.1l Mk2 Fiesta

 

[jockaneezer]

My old "plastic slug" CX500 had a Morse style chain and pushrods. There was a recall on the early models for a mod to the tensioner, but mine never missed a beat ?

 

[68c]

My old "plastic slug" CX500 had a Morse style chain and pushrods. There was a recall on the early models for a mod to the tensioner, but mine never missed a beat ?

Exactly, push rods are ideal for the slow reving deisel engines fitted to our van. Has the added added advantage in that the designer can place the valves at the optimum angle, especially with multi valve cylinders.
Long live the push rod, boo sucks to the toothed rubber band.

 

[mohawkman]

Which used to lose it's teeth on occasion.

I seem to recall that the Renault Dauphine had fibre timing gears which was a good source of income for the local Renault agent where i worked !!!

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[Barriesimpson]

What's wrong with push rods. My Moto Guzzi revs to 8,000 rpm with push rods so not a problem for a diesel. Push rods can enable valves to be set at angle for peak efficiency. The cam can be gear driven or driven with a shorter chain.

My Kawasaki Z900 A1 revved to 12.000 rpm, so there

 

[Tony50]

I seem to recall that the Renault Dauphine had fibre timing gears which was a good source of income for the local Renault agent where i worked !!!

Ye I was foreman in a Renault garage and those engines quite often stripped their teeth, don't seemed to have come that far

 

[PNAJones]

Took our camper in today for a cam belt. It's 5 years old and the van has done 'only' 16,000 miles.
It'll cost £600 - 700.
What a horrible, poxy, inadequate, weak link this thing is in a complex vehicle, one that, touch wood has run fine to date.
Of course, £600 would be 'cheap' if it did happen to snap. But it's scant consolation for a piece of kit that is basically not up to the job. I know they have chains now - are these changed periodically?
But whatever, the majority are rubber and integral to the just about every vehicle. You'd think that by now they'd have come up with a better system than something that needs to be changed after so little mileage?

I ponder this conundrum, and resultant hit to the wallet, on my 3-mile walk home having dropped the van off. It's a walk I normally thoroughly enjoy along the canal towpath. But my mood is rather dark, summed up when my tracky bottoms are muddied by two passing dogs that jump up - 'he's only playing', said one owner, 'sorry, he's just learning,' said the other. Learning?!
To put the tin lid on it, as it were, I got soiled by a passing duck as it crapped on my anorak!

Ruddy cam belts.

I have just bought my first motorhome, the timing belt has not been changed in 10 years from what I can tell from the service history, so well overdue for changing along with the obligatory water pump, quoted over £700 for the work, however that does come with a 12 month parts and labour guarantee or 12,000 miles so will hopefully be good value, just have to build that into my running costs every 5 years or so

 

[Tony50]

I have just bought my first motorhome, the timing belt has not been changed in 10 years from what I can tell from the service history, so well overdue for changing along with the obligatory water pump, quoted over £700 for the work, however that does come with a 12 month parts and labour guarantee or 12,000 miles so will hopefully be good value, just have to build that into my running costs every 5 years or so

I'd get it done right away, I have repaired a lot of vehicles that had a cambelt snap, it helped profit margins though, there's this old saying" One man's meat is another man's poison". So save yourself another £1000