Am I missing something here, they replaced the cambelt I presume not knowing the damage the broken belt had done, but got the emissions test done just before the belt broke.

I read the OP as asking for a belt change, not that it was already damaged ? Sounds to me as if they got it wrong and caused the damage themselves ?

But if the value of the car is in its service history, that may be lost if the well-looked-after engine has been trashed ? Is the bodywork good ?

Edited by Andrew-T on 08/02/2022 at 09:49

The OP said "it needed a timing belt" but having booked it in for that, why did the garage MOT it before replacing the belt, which anyone with any sense would have done.

I view the garage as responsible for the problem and I would expect them to fund repairs, unless there is something we have not been told.

If you booked it in to have the belt done and they returned it with a ruined engine and a snapped belt I’d say they were at fault. Hard to prove but what’s the likelihood of it failing in the short period of time they had it? Almost zero. Proving it however would be impossible but the cheek and utter incompetence of them then fitting a belt to a ruined engine and then billing you for it astounds me. Don’t use them again! As for saving the car, well this was one of Alfa's finest moments. These were beautiful cars, elegant and very pleasant to drive. The 1800 twins park was a sweet revving and quite lusty motor too and the handling wasn’t compromised by the heavier and torquier diesel and V6 motors. It was a real sweet spot, especially the early pre-facelift examples. If it’s solid (I’d be amazed if it was) then save it. A good example is well worth preserving and you’ll sell it all day long for £3k plus if again it’s nice. But if it’s rotten it’s sadly not worth the cost of making it right.

I find it very unlikely the belt lost its teeth while being MOTed, although a little over due time wise the car had only done 10,000 miles since its previous belt change. The belts tend to snap rather than loose their teeth according to Alfa forums.

Who goes on to do MOt (which still had a couple of months left) repairs and put on a new blet on car with an engine that is only properly running on two cylenders. However spoke to a couple of lawyers and they say I need to have it stripped by a engineer to prove what happened, trading standards are not that interested, so gave the garage poor reviews and moving on.

Be amazed!, It has no advisories. Had some rust coming through so had it delt with. Guy who did the welding says I wil get rust spots from time to time which will need doing but the car generally is in a solid state.

Similar cars go between £1200 and £2000, I can get £275 from a breaker for it.

Got a Alfa 156 1.8TS, owned it for 14 years has 83,000 on the clock.

It was running great but needed a timming belt, so booked it into a garage that I used for years and went away for a couple of days. On my return the garage told the the belt lost its teeth while being MOTed and the engine was broken,

So they broke your engine. Hard to believe that a transient fast idle emission test (2500 - 3000 revs) on a warmed engine would suddenly cause the belt to lose teeth. As the back of the belt drives the water pump as well, perhaps its bearing was nearly seized and causing extra strain on the crankshaft sprocket/teeth interface?

So what would you do?

Ask to see the old belt, water pump and tension pulley. If their pulleys rotate freely, ask how they wrecked your engine. It's possible they may have failed to remove some sort of camshaft locking pin when they tried to start it.

Old components got thrown away, they had the car a few days as I was away.