How old is your starter battery

It's a Ducato 2.2 Ford Puma engine, with the 5 speed box, to be honest it handles stuff like bealach na ba etc with ease, but we have a much much worse road not far from Fort William
 
Pudsey Bear said:
I got a chain.
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People overrate the benefit of a chain over a belt sometimes.
When I got my VW T5, I was very pleased the 2.5TDi had a chain and I didn't have to worry about a timing belt breaking like on the smaller T5 engines and my previous T4.
That engine cost me round £3,000 to repair when the OHC needed replacing....
 
You just can't win can you !!!!! Having an Engine to go wrong costing you money or buy a Electric Car & pay out an astronomical amount (£15K) for a Battery .
 
Burge said:
Is this the 1st Timing Belt change on your Van Steve ? This Burstner Harmony 690g we have is 5yrs old & done 11500 mls & was wondering when the Belt would need changing, have heard it's yrs & well as milage that require it to be changed, thanks Chris.
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No, Chris, it will be the 2nd change. The 1st was when we bought the Van [8767 miles and 4 yrs 10 months old] in April 2021. The Manual says every 4 years [there is an 'and/or x mileage' figure but cannot remember]. Our M/Home is presently on 29868 miles, so well within the mileage, but will get it changed on the 9th anniversary, after the Spain Winter Break, at about 34000 miles total [25000 miles for this belt]

There is a school of thought that low mileage M/Homes are more at risk of belt snapping because long storage enables the belt to seize on the pulleys; I hope to have avoided that risk by hhaving the belt changed [+ water pump] at purchase, and using the M/Home mainly for European Trips of 1500-2000 miles each way, plus a few Rallies of 150 miles each way in between, so a decent number of trips each year

Steve
 
wildebus said:
People overrate the benefit of a chain over a belt sometimes.
When I got my VW T5, I was very pleased the 2.5TDi had a chain and I didn't have to worry about a timing belt breaking like on the smaller T5 engines and my previous T4.
That engine cost me round £3,000 to repair when the OHC needed replacing....
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Nothing to do with a chain or belt, most donkeys today are OHC, many cold starts or short trips & wrong oils may cause falure.
 
wildebus said:
People overrate the benefit of a chain over a belt sometimes.
When I got my VW T5, I was very pleased the 2.5TDi had a chain and I didn't have to worry about a timing belt breaking like on the smaller T5 engines and my previous T4.
That engine cost me round £3,000 to repair when the OHC needed replacing....
Click to expand...
Swings and roundabouts, this just went over 44k
 
The older Mercedes cars (up to 1993, I don't know about the modern ones) had duplex timing chains. I have had lots, all well over 180k miles and I never knew or heard of one that needed the chain replacing. The most I ever did to an engine was to re-shim the cam followers, just out of interest but I don't think it made any difference to the performance. I've just been to the Unimog museum in Germany and they use duplex chains.
 
Burge said:
You just can't win can you !!!!! Having an Engine to go wrong costing you money or buy a Electric Car & pay out an astronomical amount (£15K) for a Battery .
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Oh that's a lot. My replacement Nissan Leaf battery only cost (someone else) £5,000. After 8000 miles in two years it was cream crackered. So on top of the free road tax you spend £2500 per annum on batteries, not including the vehicle electric's 12v battery. . . . . and don't forget the antifreeze- the batteries run hot so they still need a radiator with coolant - which has to be pumped by an electric motor of course. As does the power steering and the brakes.
I got rid of it as soon as I could when the finance deal finished. In case you are wondering they would not replace the battery under warranty because I had recharged it when it was already 80% full, and that "Invalidates the warranty, Sir". Though of course they don't tell you that when you buy it. They can plug in their computer and list each occasion when the battery was charged, how long, start and finish volts and so on.

Now follows a tirade of abuse from very satisfied happy electric car owners . . . . . . . . :D
 
If you want a belt with a designed-in short life buy a Ford Ecotec car. The engine has a rubber drive belt that runs in the sump oil. Whoever thought of that deserves a big pay rise from Ford, for trebling their engine sales. The rubber of course dissolves in the oil and clogs up the works so you need a new engine.
My daughter had one, and it went kaputt for this reason. Mind you, a replacement new engine cost £1100 fitted. So we really are now in the realms of 'it's not worth servicing your engine, it's cheaper to let it go bang and buy a new one'. 4 injectors for my 1999 Transit cost nearly that much.
 
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