1.0 EcoBoost 'wet belt' issue

[Sarah46]

And I want to thank you guys for listening to my rants. Due to the fact we are now selling both of our Fords after this debacle - it means I will no longer be a member of the Ford Owners Club.

It has been great seeing your words of wisdom and advice and listening to a blonde bird with no car knowledge rattle on ... who with her first car ( an Austin Metro ) didn't know where the oil went, so grabbed a funnel and poured it in through the hole where the dipstick came out from !!!        I know, I know.....  😄 

So thank you all once again... it's been a pleasure to meet you all !!

 

Sarah.

[Eric Bloodaxe]

3 hours ago, Sarah46 said:

it means I will no longer be a member of the Ford Owners Club.

Thank you for sharing your story, Sarah, it's been informative and I am sorry you did not get a better response and outcome.

Hope you might stick around though - there's a vast fund of unbiased knowledge on here about all sorts of vehicles - many members have owned and driven a variety of makes in their motoring lifetimes, and there are several who don't own Fords at present.

Plus it's a great place just to have a moan about a variety of topics, as you already know!😀

All the best.

 

[Hackney]

13 hours ago, Sarah46 said:

And I want to thank you guys for listening to my rants. Due to the fact we are now selling both of our Fords after this debacle - it means I will no longer be a member of the Ford Owners Club.

It has been great seeing your words of wisdom and advice and listening to a blonde bird with no car knowledge rattle on ... who with her first car ( an Austin Metro ) didn't know where the oil went, so grabbed a funnel and poured it in through the hole where the dipstick came out from !!!        I know, I know.....  😄 

So thank you all once again... it's been a pleasure to meet you all !!

 

Sarah.

The thing is, you have @ least gained some knowledge around here!All the best with your car hunting!👍👍🇦🇺🇦🇺🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘

[Grungernut]

On 4/30/2022 at 8:50 AM, Winiboo said:

This happened to me yesturday.  My 6 year old Ford focus that has done 72000 miles had an oil light come on. I took it straight to the garage.  The wet belt has completely disintegrated and ruined my engine.  The car is a right off. 9500 pounds worth. Gone. I've done a lot of digging and it would appear this is very common my garage has seen 5 this year (it April) and the scrap company get 5 or 6 a week.  I won't have a leg to stand on cos I was ill last year (covid) and didn't get it serviced.  The new engines they are putting in the wet belts now have a seal protection around them so Ford clearly knew there was a problem.  Every garage I have spoken to says even if I got the car fixed (around 5 grand) get rid of it.  

I have always got my cars serviced but did not realise the implications of missing a service on a car with with wet belt.  I mean who asks when they buy a car if it has a wet belt or not!?

I am beyond panicked financially.  Don't know what to do.  And feel sick that I have been scammed / duped by Ford.

I have a similar issue with my 14 plate 1.0 ecoboost ,wet belt snapped I'd only had it 7 months,after nearly 2 months of fighting with the warranty company they agreed to pay for a remanufactured engine, while I was going through this I spoke to my local ford dealership and they said they could put a new engine in it for 4k, the warranty company would not agree to a new one and the remanufactured one is costing 2k, still a lot of money I know but may be worth looking into.

[unofix]

Brand new Ford engines supplied and fitted for less than £3000

On 8/6/2022 at 5:20 PM, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Spotted this, which may be of interest. Other types also available.

https://pumaspeed.co.uk/product-Brand-New-Ford-Service-10-EcoBoost-Engine_18898.jsp

 

 

[proch]

I read the whole thing. It scared me enough. I have a bad feeling driving my Focus mk4 now. Perhaps a B7DA engine will be more reliable. Can I do something to prevent it? I've only had the car for a short time, driven 90000 km, service history ok. The oil is changed regularly 1 year/22000 km cca,  only Ford service. I don't want to experience what Sarah46, that was crazy...

[TomsFocus]

2 hours ago, proch said:

I read the whole thing. It scared me enough. I have a bad feeling driving my Focus mk4 now. Perhaps a B7DA engine will be more reliable. Can I do something to prevent it? I've only had the car for a short time, driven 90000 km, service history ok. The oil is changed regularly 1 year/22000 km cca,  only Ford service. I don't want to experience what Sarah46, that was crazy...

Keep driving it...  I'm almost certain that these failures are now mainly caused by not being driven regularly through covid lockdowns.  Obviously use only the correct oil.  And never use an engine flush.

The Mk4 engines uses a chain, so that should be fine (although give it a few years, we'll probably hear about stretched chains or faulty chain guides...).  The oil pump is still driven by a wet belt on the Mk4, so that's the concern currently, but we haven't seen any fail so far.

[proch]

I'm new here, from Prague, CZ and I say hello to everyone.

Thank you for your words...I have heard stories of oil pump clogging. I thought I'd check it out. Maybe an inspection minicamera, or remove the oil pan. But most of the particles that clogged it,  was probably from the timing belt. And I don't have that one. When the oil belt is destroyed, I will stop the engine immediately, it should not be destroyed.

[Red red wine]

I have just been quoted £1800 to fit a new wet belt and water pump on my ford focus . What get me is the best and pump cost approx £230 so the balance is for labour charges ,how can ford justify almost £1600 in labour charges 

[alexp999]

4 minutes ago, Red red wine said:

I have just been quoted £1800 to fit a new wet belt and water pump on my ford focus . What get me is the best and pump cost approx £230 so the balance is for labour charges ,how can ford justify almost £1600 in labour charges 

They have to dismantle so much of the engine it's something like a 6+ hr job with specialist tools.

[mburdett555]

I think if you check the thread "yet another focus mk3 timing belt thread" there are some garage suggestions knocking the price down considerably. Non ford dealer but ford specialist near me (Worthing) cedar garage, claiming to be able to do it for £1500 ish, but including the wet AND oil belt.

[simon401982]

Does anybody know if the prices stated above include the dreaded VAT??....

[mburdett555]

£1800 sounds like it would be inclusive of VAT. Local ford dealer near me quoted £1600 + vat for the same job., Exc the oil belt faff which would take it up to £2000 + vat, explaining the extra £400 based on extra work removing the sump 

[iantt]

7.2 hrs for the timing belt and 2.2hrs for the oil pump belt. 

[Bxzx16v]

Check out Ecopro at Lincoln, you could stay in a hotel and still be quids in.

[unofix]

2 hours ago, iantt said:

7.2 hrs for the timing belt and 2.2hrs for the oil pump belt. 

and that's on a good day with everything going to plan. Add in a few seized up rusty bolts or a snapped stud and you can easy add an hour.

[Hackney]

On 1/25/2023 at 2:46 AM, Red red wine said:

I have just been quoted £1800 to fit a new wet belt and water pump on my ford focus . What get me is the best and pump cost approx £230 so the balance is for labour charges ,how can ford justify almost £1600 in labour charges 

Far out, that is very expensive.You can get it done here in Australia for around $1,600(around £916).You guys are seriously ripped off!

[mr benn]

Weve been looking to replace our fabulous old Ford Focus 2005 on 169,000 miles. I assumed that to go for another Focus was a good move, not brand new but probably 5 or so years old.  But some of these reports of Focus cars hardly 2 or 3 years old just breaking down is a bit of a horror story.  Must admit its giving us second thoughts. 

[Hackney]

25 minutes ago, mr benn said:

Weve been looking to replace our fabulous old Ford Focus 2005 on 169,000 miles. I assumed that to go for another Focus was a good move, not brand new but probably 5 or so years old.  But some of these reports of Focus cars hardly 2 or 3 years old just breaking down is a bit of a horror story.  Must admit its giving us second thoughts. 

Just get a Hybrid Toyota or Honda.You won’t look back.Ultra reliable.

[Eric Bloodaxe]

58 minutes ago, mr benn said:

Weve been looking to replace our fabulous old Ford Focus 2005 on 169,000 miles. I assumed that to go for another Focus was a good move, not brand new but probably 5 or so years old.  But some of these reports of Focus cars hardly 2 or 3 years old just breaking down is a bit of a horror story.  Must admit its giving us second thoughts. 

You're asking the same question on several different threads.

It's great that your old Focus did so well, but the world has moved on since that was made, not always in a good way unfortunately.

It's all a bit academic now, but my take on this was that I was quite content to purchase an Ecoboost new and keep it up to 5/6 years knowing I would have it serviced regularly. I wouldn't have bought a used one at that sort of age.

 

 

[mr benn]

9 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

You're asking the same question on several different threads.

It's great that your old Focus did so well, but the world has moved on since that was made, not always in a good way unfortunately.

It's all a bit academic now, but my take on this was that I was quite content to purchase an Ecoboost new and keep it up to 5/6 years knowing I would have it serviced regularly. I wouldn't have bought a used one at that sort of age.

Sorry for making comments on 2 threads......

 

 

[alexp999]

I count 3 😉

[nikkijskett]

On 5/27/2022 at 12:20 PM, Sarah46 said:

So to update where we are with this... the car has been delivered to Ford this morning for them to do their own diagnostics and confirm what we already know they will find. 

The lady at customer relations is still being deliberately vague, she says they will look at it and send the report and any parts off to the main Ford place for them to see if this is actually a Manufacturer defect, or something we have caused ( they keep mentioning the servicing and oil as expected ), she keeps stating all calls are recorded and we ask for an email backup of our calls so we have it in writing - but as yet she seems incapable of typing an email so we are doing that for her, so we know exactly what was said. We have also dictated back to her Fords own detailing on the wet belt and how long it is expected to last - up to 150k.  She has stated that they will get back to us and see what they can do, and hinted at a reduction in costs to get it fixed. We have explained to her in no uncertain terms that we will be taking it further with every agency we have at our disposal if they try and lay this at our door. The guy at the garage we took it to says he has seen a number of these, but ours is by far the worst especially on a car that was working perfectly and had no issues right up to the second it cut out with no warning.

She thinks they will know on Wednesday where they will be with it, so here's to fingers crossed that Wednesday will have a happy outcome !

Hi

 

How did you get on with this please ?

[unofix]

🤔🤔

[karlbbb]

Just a small bump on this topic.

Recently picked up a '22 reg Focus Titanium Estate, with the 1.0 125 mHEV and 7-speed auto - will this be a timing chain? I understand it'll still be wet belt for the oil pump, but just for a little peace of mind I wanted to check on the main timing belt/chain situation.