Out of interest has anyone managed to get a 'highish' mileage yet without any wetbelt issues, cannot imagine they all go pop before getting near or at Fords 'supposed' mileage🤔

23 minutes ago, 24008943 said:

Out of interest has anyone managed to get a 'highish' mileage yet without any wetbelt issues, cannot imagine they all go pop before getting near or at Fords 'supposed' mileage🤔

Depends how the car has been used. I think degradation from age and lack of maintenance or short journeys play a bigger role than just mileage. 
 

Either way I wouldn’t take any chances. 

Daughter in law has the wet belt engine in her car, she doesn't give a damn about it blowing up, it gets used every day and has covered some good miles, i'll ask her to tell me what her mileage is, the car not her!

Her car has 65,000 miles on it, 14 plate.

I remember being in a Ford dealership a good few years back, nice red escort on a trailer, car was only about a year old and the engine had given up.

I think this is one of the highest, if not the highest, we've seen on here:

 

Yes  i guess its a bit if a lottery.

Daughters second hand 2015 Fiesta wetbelt snapped at 58,000, had little in the way of service info  so waste of time asking Ford, sold it for £1,600 but lost ££'s on her outlay 😣

 

My Ford dealer has two wet belt cars that they use as loan cars with more than 120,000 miles on the original belt. They say that they have never had a car in with a snapped belt on any car that they have serviced at the correct intervals, using the correct oil, from new.

They did have one in when I was last there with a snapped belt at 60,000 miles. Apparently it had never had the oil changed from new.

8 minutes ago, pcaouolte said:

My Ford dealer has two wet belt cars that they use as loan cars with more than 120,000 miles on the original belt. They say that they have never had a car in with a snapped belt on any car that they have serviced at the correct intervals, using the correct oil, from new.

They did have one in when I was last there with a snapped belt at 60,000 miles. Apparently it had never had the oil changed from new.

Sounds like standard dealership bullshit tbh.

Why would any brand new car not have at least one oil change while still under warranty?

2 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Why would any brand new car not have at least one oil change while still under warranty?

Customer, a business, decided to do their own servicing (or not do it).

4 minutes ago, pcaouolte said:

Customer, a business, decided to do their own servicing (or not do it).

I'm afraid I still don't believe it without some evidence.  Or the idea of 2x hire cars at 120k on the original belts.

Unfortunately I have a very low tolerance for bullshit, and car dealerships & garages is where I've found a lot of it.

It is usually low mileage cars that suffer from wetbelt failure. 

On these low mileage cars people often delay (or even skip) services because they did only few Miles since the last service. Delaying or skipping services is catastrophic for these wetbelt engines.

Low mileage vehicles do often drive short trips. Ford considers driving short trips to be one of the severe conditions that require a reduced service interval. People seem to forget or be completely unaware of this.


When I bought my previous 1.0 ECOboost Focus MK3 it was exactly 1 Year old and got its 1st service by the Ford dealership before delivery. All other services were performed by myself so the full service history from new was known to me. When I sold the car in 2022 it was 9 Years old and only did less than 30.000 Miles. 

During the last 4 services I also had ab oil analysis performed just to monitor possible increased deterioration of the wetbelts. In all cases there was not a single indication of increased wetbelt deterioration.

In my opinion performing an oil analysis is a cost effective method to determine the condition of the engine and wetbelts. Many oil manufacturers offer an oil analysis (including the sample kit) for approximately 50 to 75 GBP. 

14 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

I think this is one of the highest, if not the highest, we've seen on here:

 

Still going strong at 220,641 km. Only average about 6k km a year though, mainly mid-long journeys. 

4 hours ago, pcaouolte said:

Customer, a business, decided to do their own servicing (or not do it)

 

4 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

Why would any brand new car not have at least one oil change while still under warranty?

Can't comment on what goes on nowadays, but that would not have been unusual at one time for fleet users with their own workshops.

Most of our vehicles (mainly commercial but some passenger cars) never went near a dealer from ordering to disposal. On disposal, we simply provided a print out from our fleet management system showing service/repairs carried out during the life of the vehicle. This included PDI and warranty work as we had an arrangement with most manufacturers to do this ourselves.

 

13 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Can't comment on what goes on nowadays, but that would not have been unusual at one time for fleet users with their own workshops.

Most of our vehicles (mainly commercial but some passenger cars) never went near a dealer from ordering to disposal. On disposal, we simply provided a print out from our fleet management system showing service/repairs carried out during the life of the vehicle. This included PDI and warranty work as we had an arrangement with most manufacturers to do this ourselves.

You still did the servicing though.  I just can't imagine anyone buying a brand new car to do 60k without considering that it might need some sort of service at some point.  

My Ford Fiesta is coming up to 10 years old in January 2026 and I haven't had my wet belt changed yet (currently has 73,000 miles). I have done my last 2 oil changes and the oil container didn't have anything inside (such as small rubber pieces from the wet belt) from when I drained it, so I suspect my wet belt is not wearing 'yet'....?

I should note that I am the original owner of the car (I'm the first owner), it has been serviced every year and I have tried my best to look after it. For about 2 years of ownership towards the beginning, I did short work journeys but every year after that, the engine probably got up to optimal temperature due to longer work journeys since then. 

2 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

I just can't imagine anyone buying a brand new car to do 60k without considering that it might need some sort of service at some point

Risk of going off at a tangent here, but I can see how it could happen through carelessness/neglect/stupidity/error, particularly nowadays with outsourcing of everything/leasing etc. I often see Fiestas (don't know what they will get next!) used by NHS health visitors, district nurses, etc which I assume are leased and wonder what arrangements exist for ensuring maintenance is carried out.

Even back in the day, we got the odd similar instance where the end user of a leased vehicle was responsible for taking it for service but didn't, and the leasing company didn't pick up that they hadn't had a service bill. 

 

Thanks for all the informative replies👍🏻

I run an Ecosport automatic 2019, with annual main dealer servicing , also paying  £18 per month for the Ford Gold warranty, so trying to cover any 'nasties' that comes along although i realise most bought warranties are full of get outs.

Only keep the model as the missus is well happy driving it, plus she wont entertain an electronic handbrake and there is very few new models being made with a manual one,and  none i dont think with the same high driving position🤷‍♂️

13 hours ago, 24008943 said:

Thanks for all the informative replies👍🏻

I run an Ecosport automatic 2019, with annual main dealer servicing , also paying  £18 per month for the Ford Gold warranty, so trying to cover any 'nasties' that comes along although i realise most bought warranties are full of get outs.

Only keep the model as the missus is well happy driving it, plus she wont entertain an electronic handbrake and there is very few new models being made with a manual one,and  none i dont think with the same high driving position🤷‍♂️

The Puma has a mechanical handbrake and a high driving position.  

They all have the chain driven engine.  But still have a small wetbelt for the oil pump.  And if you need automatic, then they have a longer oil pump wetbelt with a balance shaft and a tensioner that seem to either be poorly made, or are putting more strain on the belt.

VW T-Cross and Skoda Kamiq have high driving positions, manual handbrake and are available with  auto. No wetbelts either!😀 

Edit: a neighbour is very pleased with her new Suzuki S-Cross which would also seem to fit the brief - higher seat, manual handbrake, auto available.

Edited July 14, 2025Jul 14 by Eric Bloodaxe
Extra sentence

Ta for that info Eric👍🏻