I own a 2000/X Xantia HDi 110 with 80k on the clock. Main dealer serviced since new. Cambelt changed at last service (75,000) as I thought the recommended 100k interval was pushing my luck. I?ve used the dealer for years and up to now been v happy with them.
On Sunday pulling out of a road junction got sound like a bag of spanners. Stopped immediately and was flatbedded back to the home dealer. Now been advised the cambelt has jumped
Two issues:-
What might cause this and how far am I justified in pushing the garage for an explanation and at least a contribution to cost.
Secondly, I?m having to make the running in getting information. Had to chase yesterday for any sort of progress, told cambelt problem and that further dismantling/investigation required. No more information today, chased again to be told dismantling complicated job, lots to do including skimming head (surely that?s a reassembly issue!). I?m not happy about the level of info provided generally or any sort of hint that we?re talking a £1k plus job here.
Any comments and hints tips about tactics in handling this greatly appreciated.
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"What might cause this"
Was the tensioner changed as well as the cambelt? Don't know anything about HDI's but my cambelt (VAG TDI) jumped due to a failed tensioner. Luckily no damage.
Also, if car has failed in this fashion, and you have had it serviced on schedule and the cambelt not even yet due, then you may have good reason to go back to Citroen and complain. A lot.
Good luck!
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"jumped due to a failed tensioner" mine too, a Focus.
Cambelt was intact
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Could even be it was incorrectly tensioned when replaced?.
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Steve
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PSA diesels have very robust cambelt setups. The old XUD very rarly threw cambelts unless the change had been botched or very neglected. HDi is the same (belt set up very similar), failure almost unheard of, even at the 100k recommended change. I think, however, the HDi uses a set up similar to the 2.1 XUD unit, where there is a stud that requires very low torque to do it up. Failure of this stud (caused by overtorquing it) causes the tensioner to slip and the belt to jump. I would certainly be approaching it from the "you changed it recently, it's your fault" angle unless they can prove otherwise (eg water pump seized, but then arguably they should have picked this up when they changed the belt anyway).
As an aside, I would have thought changing this cambelt was a job best entrusted to an independent, since they are likely to do far more than a main dealer that generally only sees cars for the first 50k or so miles.
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RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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Thanks for the comments above. Initial failure was the rubber bonded pulley, as referred to in HJ's car by car guide. I'd asked about this at the service but foolishly accepted their advice that the part was OK and in fact rarely gave trouble. Couple of broken rockers, camshaft OK
Quote of £800 reduced to £400 and accepted by me.
And I'm told piston to valve contact is impossible on the 1997cc HDi unit.
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That rubber bonded pulley again!!
This seems to come up time and time again on this forum, so much so it must be considered now to be a serviceable item along with the cambelt at change time on this engine.
Can definately echo Richard W's comments re reliability of xud and HDi cambelt set ups - they are very good. The tensioner in particular is practically bullet-proof. Failure v.rare.
Glad to hear you got this sorted out at reasonable cost bromptonaut, just shows how clueless most dealers are.
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£400 pretty good - changing the pulley at a dealer is probably a £200 job!
"And I'm told piston to valve contact is impossible on the 1997cc HDi unit."
So how did the rockers get broken then.....?????
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RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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So how did the rockers get broken then.....????? -- RichardW Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
I'm told that with valve timing out of synch camshaft attempts to open valve against compression/ignition and rocker as "softest" component gives up the ghost first. If that or the story about impossibility of valve/cylinder contact can be disproved I'd very much like to know.
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I thought all modern diesel engines were the interference type?
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The fact that it's still going to cost Bromptonaut £400 totally blows out of the water any notion that having the cambelt done at a main dealer gives extra reassurance.
Also shows the "no warranty on that mate" warnings when you supply your own parts as being hot air.
Point is that you can do it all exactly as they want you too, pay top whack for everything, and there's STILL no way in a million years that you'll be properly compensated if anything goes wrong.
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Bromptonaut - please see my last post in this thread www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/reply.htm?m=319417 . I don't really feel THAT hard done by, but was surprised at Ford's attitude to adjusters...
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Link is bad - use this instead www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=30654&...7
{Either link should work now. DD}
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Intersing Smokie.
I've spoken to Citroen Customer Service to try and find a definitive answer to the valves/pistons question. "Customer Service" something of an oxymoron, I'm told they cannot supply technical information to the public due to Health and Safety reasons!
After practising assertiveness quite hard I eventually got a comittment for somebody to ring me back before close of play tomorrow. Still a mystery why they cannot answer a yes/no question (or why the operative i spoke to asked "is that the year?" when gave him the engine's cubic capacity!!)
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Come on! These engines have a compression ratio of about 18:1 - it doesn't strain the brain too much to figure out its going to be *interference*!
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>I eventually got a comittment for somebody to ring me back before close of play tomorrow<.
Please let us know if this happens ...
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If I were you I would not be accepting the fact that you will have to pay £400 towards the cost of this job.
As far as I can see the car has always been main dealer serviced, the cambelt was changed within its time limit, you enquired at the time about the tensioner but they decided it did not require changing and they are the Citroen agent so they should know better than anyone else about doing the job.
You could have done no more than you did. Therefore I would be telling them that the failure is wholly down to them and their 'negligence'. Push for them to pay for the whole cost of the repair, not you.
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Just had a phone call from Steven at Citroen UK. Not a techy himslef but has spoken to those who are. Again states valve to piston contact not possible on 1997cc HDi unit.
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Final line missed from above message; thanks to all contributors for their help.
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Surely this has to be an interference engine??!! (can you tell i don't trust dealers?)
Graham F1 - totally agree with you re the supplying of own parts at cambelt changes. If it snaps its the same treatment regardless of who supplied the parts.
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To be sure I'm not getting stupid in my old age I just went and rummaged through my Autodata book. Autodata state that this is an interference engine.
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Update, passed on Aprilia's sage advice re Autodata to Citroen Customer Services who had a senior customer liason person phone me this morning. Trouble is senior means one with enhanced fob off skills, basically told me that if they got a tech query from a customer they just went back to the dealer and moved no further. Utterly useless. She may however have spoken to the dealer cos when I phoned to check if car was ready (originally due Friday but I told them not to bust a gut as i was away over weekend in other car)
Told they've now taken the head off, "to be on the safe side" and have had to order extra parts. Will get a list of these from the service manager tomorrow. Charge to me remains £400 as agreed.
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Glad to be of service and that you're getting somewhere with the dealer. Does sound like some damage has been done though.
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