Hi, hoping for some advice please. 
 

I have in old 2014 focus eco boost.  Been an ok car so far but I have yo replace the belt as the vehicle is 10 years old.  I got a quote from Ford in excess of £1700.  Which is probably what the car is worth.  It has just under 60000 miles.  Unless I can find a more reasonable solution I think I will have to trade it in which I really don’t want to do but feel I have not much choice.  I tried asking on local FB pages for recommendations but looks like not many places are able/willing to take this on.  Any advice or recommendations greatly appreciated.  We are in Bexley. Thank you 

I've just googled it for you and this guy is based in Sittingbourne ???...

Ford 1.0 Ecoboost & 2.0 Diesel Ecoblue Wet Belt Replacement Service | Emporium Remaps

21 minutes ago, Phil3747 said:

I've just googled it for you and this guy is based in Sittingbourne ???...

Ford 1.0 Ecoboost & 2.0 Diesel Ecoblue Wet Belt Replacement Service | Emporium Remaps

From their website at least, it looks as if they do a proper job (replace oil pump belt, clean pump inlet, etc). It will be interesting to see what price they quote.

Problem with trading the car at this point is people are (or should be!) wise to the issue and will offer accordingly for a car without evidence of a belt change.

Current car is a known quantity and, If still in good order otherwise, it would probably be worth doing - "cost to change" would be a lot more with still no 100% guarantee of a reliable car.

15 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

From their website at least, it looks as if they do a proper job (replace oil pump belt, clean pump inlet, etc). It will be interesting to see what price they quote.

Problem with trading the car at this point is people are (or should be!) wise to the issue and will offer accordingly for a car without evidence of a belt change.

Current car is a known quantity and, If still in good order otherwise, it would probably be worth doing - "cost to change" would be a lot more with still no 100% guarantee of a reliable car.

Thank you.  Will give them a ring Monday and see what they say.   Will report back when I hear anything l.  As you say it is still in good condition so if I could have it replaced by a reputable garage I may get a few more years out if it.   Thanks again.  Very much appreciated. 

Just a little update sadly not great news.  Booked the car in with Emporium for the week after next.  They quoted £950 but sadly the car decided differently and the belt failed this evening just short of 60000 miles so looks like it’s the end of the road sadly.   

That is so sad.

What a joke of an engine this is

 

5 hours ago, DaveT70 said:

That is so sad.

What a joke of an engine this is

 

I agree!

And all in the hope of gaining a miniscule reduction in emissions.

No way I would touch a vehicle with a wet belt engine.

15 hours ago, Danielle1906 said:

... sadly the car decided differently and the belt failed this evening just short of 60000 miles so looks like it’s the end of the road sadly.   

That is incredibly sad timing, car booked in, not an extortionate price, and car fails after 60,000 miles whilst waiting for service appointment! Couldn't make it up... I feel your loss.

3 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

That is incredibly sad timing,

Or incredibly accurate timing by Ford. They say belt replacement is due 10 years maximum age and the car is a 2014 model.

It is indeed very sad for the OP, but as has been said many times before, 10 years is not a target that has to be achieved before replacing the wetbelt. 

There's been a lot of media coverage of the "ecoboom" variety, but I don't recall much, if any, mention of the belt change.

I've mentioned on here a couple of friends whose cars are at about 9 years and regularly serviced at non-Ford garages, and they hadn't a clue until I told them about it.

I doubt there are many 8/9 year old cars still being serviced at Ford dealers, but I wonder how many owners have been alerted by either their Ford dealer or independent servicing garage?

On 9/26/2024 at 8:07 PM, unofix said:

Or incredibly accurate timing by Ford. They say belt replacement is due 10 years maximum age and the car is a 2014 model.

It is indeed very sad for the OP, but as has been said many times before, 10 years is not a target that has to be achieved before replacing the wetbelt. 

I was not aware about this at all.  At my last MOT and service the garage told me that it would be good to replace the belt as it was now 10 years old but they did t think it was urgent due to the mileage and said it still looked sound.  Unfortunately the local garage wasn’t equipped for wet belt replacement so had to look further afield.  Had I been aware it should have been done sooner I would have done so. Unfortunately my knowledge of cars goes no further than filling up the windscreen liquid. 

17 hours ago, Danielle1906 said:

as it was now 10 years old but they did t think it was urgent due to the mileage and said it still looked sound.  

It seems from the vast numbers of wet belt failures on here, are those with low mileage but nearing the 10 years of age and seem to fail more than those with high mileage. This is probably due to repeated short journeys that don't give the engine and the oil time to fully reach operating temperature.

The garage could not have viewed the wet belt to determine it's condition without some very serious work as the wet belt is buried deep inside of the engine. Even if it were inspected, the problem is that if it looks in poor condition then it is. However, even if it looks in good condition, it is almost impossible to say with any certainty that it is of sound condition.

It is very unfortunate that you were so very close to getting the necessary work done. Whilst you now require a replacement engine, one can be obtained for around £3300 and given that a Ford dealer charges £1800 just to change the wet belt the difference is somewhat surprising.

My mate has a 1.0 ecoboom focus on its third engine! 

The original one died at about 30k miles, replaced under warranty by Ford. The second one was then good for over 100k miles. I'm not sure if he did get the wetbelt done but it snapped again and he got a replacement engine done at Puma Speed for around £3k I think he said, they use a new long block and everything else comes off of your engine. He was very pleased with the work carried out and the speed at which the job was done.

 

It might be worth looking at them for a quote to replace the engine before calling it quits, they can also collect your car for a fee.

On 9/28/2024 at 8:25 PM, unofix said:

It seems from the vast numbers of wet belt failures on here, are those with low mileage but nearing the 10 years of age and seem to fail more than those with high mileage. This is probably due to repeated short journeys that don't give the engine and the oil time to fully reach operating temperature.

I blame Stop/Start

3 hours ago, DaveT70 said:

I blame Stop/Start

Though to be fair, it so often doesn't work as to make it an unlikely cause 🤣

2 hours ago, StephenFord said:

Though to be fair, it so often doesn't work as to make it an unlikely cause 🤣

That is very true, to be fair.

Scrap that!

I've recently bought a 2016 1.0l eco boost focus that has just had the belt changed on 100000 miles. How often should the belt be changed from now?I don't fancy paying daft money every few years to have one replaced. Apart from this question, I'm very happy with the car.

From what I've read its officially every 10 years or 150,000 miles according to Ford.

Having said that I can see some recommendations for every 8 years to be safe.

21 hours ago, TimST3 said:

Having said that I can see some recommendations for every 8 years to be safe.

Reading this thread (and, sadly, several others with similar tales, you can see why!)

 

22 hours ago, Sonnycbr said:

I've recently bought a 2016 1.0l eco boost focus that has just had the belt changed on 100000 miles. How often should the belt be changed from now?I

Clock starts again, so as Tim's post (and caveat) above. 

Is your profile correct? It says 2018, post mentions 2016.

I'm certainly planning to get the oil pump belt on my ST changed at 8 years.

Mind you, because mine is one of the last to be made, nearly everyone else will be getting it done before me since there's been a wet oil pump belt since 2019. I'll be watching very carefully to see what condition the belts (and the oil pump strainers) are in when the first ones start getting changed.

The Oil Pump Belt on my 1.5 Dragon Engine is now 5 years old and I have no intention of changing it anytime unless I see some evidence of it failing.

I have just bought a very fine Kitchen Sieve and when I change my oil before the winter I intend running the old Oil through it to check for any debris, Filter Paper would be better but the Sieve is fine.

The Oil Pressure and Oil Pump Duty Cycle can be checked with FORScan and I have started taking logs of the Live Data so that if I see a change from the normal i.e. the Duty Cycle increases for the same pressure under the same conditions then it should alert me that something is wrong. 

If it does break in the meantime then I look forward to all the I told you 😄

10 hours ago, Tizer said:

The Oil Pressure and Oil Pump Duty Cycle can be checked with FORScan and I have started taking logs of the Live Data so that if I see a change from the normal i.e. the Duty Cycle increases for the same pressure under the same conditions then it should alert me that something is wrong. 

I also started looking into this, and will start saving the logs. So far I just checked without saving the data.

Is there a thread where we post/compare logs? If not, would it make sense or help the community to have such a thread?

4 minutes ago, RaduF86 said:

Is there a thread where we post/compare logs? If not, would it make sense or help the community to have such a thread?

That is an Idea worth thinking about.

17 hours ago, Tizer said:

The Oil Pressure and Oil Pump Duty Cycle can be checked with FORScan 

 

I have read again your post, and I have to ask: Is the pump displacement electronically controlled? I don't remember seing any wires/connectors going to the oil pump (in 1.0 disassembly videos i've seen online).

I shall look in FORscan for this duty cycle. So far I have only looked at pressure, oil temperature and engine RPM, and I saw that oil pressure is kept somewhat constant and is increased in certain cases like for example pressin the accelerator pedal.

4 minutes ago, RaduF86 said:

I have read again your post, and I have to ask: Is the pump displacement electronically controlled? I don't remember seing any wires/connectors going to the oil pump (in 1.0 disassembly videos i've seen online).

I shall look in FORscan for this duty cycle. So far I have only looked at pressure, oil temperature and engine RPM, and I saw that oil pressure is kept somewhat constant and is increased in certain cases like for example pressin the accelerator pedal.

I have the 1.5 3 Cylinder Dragon Engine, so it is different from your one.

Some cars have Variable Oil Pump systems, some have 2 Stage ones and some are the old style that only vary with speed. I don't know what kind your Engine has.