Hi all, I want to start by saying I know very little about cars and this is my first car. 
 

A few weeks ago my car started as usual and then slowly dropped revs before cutting off, I had a look myself and had no idea. 
 

I got a mobile mechanic out to diagnose the problem and he after spending a while said that he could see that the camshaft chain was gone. He said he could see that it wasn’t spinning when looking through the oil filler cap? Not a clue what he was even looking at, however he certainly knows more than me haha. 
 

My issue is whenever I search it seems that camshaft chain and timing belt get mixed up, or I may well be mixing them up. 
 

Whilst the mobile mechanic was looking he took the cover off the timing belt as he wanted to check all the teeth were still in tact and it want that was the issue, to which he told me there was no problem with that. 
 

When I have contacted a garage to get a quote they have sent one over for a timing belt replacement plus some other bits, if I am right in understanding this is not what I need doing.

 

Can anyone explain to me what it is I need to actually say to the garage to get a more accurate quote, or if anyone has had to replace this before could you give me a ballpark figure. 
 

My car is a 2019 focus st-line 1.5 diesel automatic if that makes any difference. 
 

Thanks. 
 

11 minutes ago, Brandoooo said:

My car is a 2019 focus st-line 1.5 diesel automatic if that makes any difference. 

Yes that information is critical.

The camshaft timing chain snapping on these engines is starting to be come quite common 🙁

It will potentially have caused quite a lot of top end damage to the engine such as damaged valves.

If when you are talking to the garage and you explain that it is a 1.5 EcoBlue engine and NOT a EcoBoost engine they should know that it does not have a 'wet' timing belt. It does however have a conventional 'dry' timing belt but if your mobile mechanic is correct then that is not the problem that you have now.

Hi Brandon,

 

24 minutes ago, Brandoooo said:

My car is a 2019 focus st-line 1.5 diesel automatic if that makes any difference. 

It probably does!

I'm not an expert on this engine (I'm sure one will be along shortly) but the 1.5 Ecoblue diesel has a conventional "dry" cambelt, but a small chain linking the two camshafts. It is not unknown for this chain to break and it sounds as if this may be what has happened.

It could be that the garage providing the quote has not understood the issue, or has confused your Ecoblue with the petrol Ecoboost. As you may know, there is a well publicised issue with cambelts on these on the previous (Mk 3) Focus, but yours is a Mk 4 so this would not apply even if it were petrol.

The cambelt needs to be removed to access the chain and the damaged valves.  So that will need replacing in addition to the chain.

27 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

The cambelt needs to be removed to access the chain and the damaged valves.  So that will need replacing in addition to the chain.

Hi, thanks for the information. Is it a given that the chain snapping will have caused any damage to the valves? 
 

Is it possible that all that has been damaged is just the chain, tensioner and bits? Or is it a chains snapped and damaged more of the engine kind of situation? 
Thanks. 

1 hour ago, Brandoooo said:

Hi, thanks for the information. Is it a given that the chain snapping will have caused any damage to the valves? 
 

Is it possible that all that has been damaged is just the chain, tensioner and bits? Or is it a chains snapped and damaged more of the engine kind of situation? 
Thanks. 

When the chain snaps, some valves will get stuck open (down). 

But the pistons all keep coming up with a huge amount of force and will hit any valves that are open.

The best case scenario is that the valve is pushed straight upwards by the piston and smashes the rocker arm above it.  If that happens, the valve may still be ok and you can get away with just replacing the rocker arm.  Unfortunately it's not really possible to tell whether any valves are damaged without removing the cylinder head to look inside.  But that's more work and more cost so the garage will probably try just a new set of rocker arms (plus chain & belt) first.