Hi,

Thinking about what to do here.

VERY concerned about the wet belt issue (both timing belt and oil belt) since my sister-in-law's experience in late May '24 (see below) as there seems to be little or no advance warning of these going.

'67 Plate Focus with 1L 125 Ecoboost Ecoboom engine.  First registered 3rd Nov 2017, has done 36,000 miles.  FSH mainly at Ford garages.  One service missing on-time as we were driving to the garage for service/MOT when I had an accident that took the car off the road for the next four months.  I guess it wouldn't then be eligible for Fords 'Goodwill Gesture' refunds on timing belt changes due to this (and good luck to me to argue the point) should the belt fail.

My sister-in-law has a '17 plate with same engine although it had done around 115 - 120k miles (mainly motorway iirc) and that let go a few weeks ago.

£2k to "repair" although problems persisted after it had gone into the garage and she's replaced the car with a '23 plate mHEV Focus.

So, some options.

A  Get both timing belt & oil belt replaced.  Likely cost and how do you sort out a good garage without (a) trusting to a 'Back Street Cowboy' or (b) paying a Ford garage $$$$ to fix.

B  Trade it in whilst the going is good.  Likely s/hand value appears to be around £8k.  Looking to replace with a BEV (currently the VW ID.3 is the front-runner) if we go down this route.

Option C is the 'Do Nothing' option and it will, at some indetrminate point in the future, fail.  As my crystal ball is currently not working, options A or B seem the best courses of action.

Regarding A, anyone have good experiences / recommendations for a garage to undertake both wet belts in N.E. Derbyshire / South Sheffield?

Thanks in advance, opinions/options welcome.

Zaph

Was your sister-in-law's car on its original belt?

It should have probably been changed at 100k regardless of age, I wouldn't trust Ford's 150k recommendation. I think I'd have even changed it well before 100k anyway.

The cost for a new oil and timing belt is usually £1200-1800.

Dump and run I say

On 7/31/2024 at 5:17 PM, alexp999 said:

Was your sister-in-law's car on its original belt?

It should have probably been changed at 100k regardless of age, I wouldn't trust Ford's 150k recommendation. I think I'd have even changed it well before 100k anyway.

The cost for a new oil and timing belt is usually £1200-1800.

AFAIK Alex, yes it was the original belt.  Not at all sure about its servicing history but don't recall her asking about whether the belt needed changing (assuming that the garage mentioned this).

Not terribly surprised that it let go but shocked that after spending approx £2k to get it fixed, the car was still "not right".

Zaph