the cambelt on my 1.6 156 went last week.
The dealer has quoted £2592.85 to rectify the problem.
The car has done 45000 miles and the belt was inspected (but not changed) at 36000.
I belive Alfa instructions are to replace at 36000 miles (delaer says advice is inspect and only replace if necessary).
Does anyone have (or know of) an official Alfa document number or id that proves this one way or the other.
Am I right to expect Alfa or the deale rto meet a good proportion of the cost above (car is 3.5 years old).
bit of a long first post so thanks for bearing with me.
cheers.
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Sorry to hear of your problem. If you look to the left there is a 'car-by-car breakdown' - look at your car and HJ mentions:-
"Timing belts and tensioners need changing way before scheduled 72k miles. See TSB to change them at 36k." So it looks like maybe 1 36k change is recommended in a TSB??
Martin
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cheers Martin - I saw that but I was hoping someone could give me a document ref or something as my dealer is still insisting it is only replace if necessary, rather than as a matter of course.
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Get your yellow pages out and ring several Alfa dealers and say you have a 1.6 156 coming up to its 36000 mile service and ask them to quote a price and ask what it involves. If they say cam belt change ask if they are sure? Without doubt they will spill the beans if the interval has been reduced with a TSB...
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£2500 to change a cambelt!
Is any Alfa worth it?
(a rhetorical question where the answer is already known:-)
madf
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Er, the £2.5k will be to rebuild (or replace?) the now lunched engine....
--
RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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Cambelt changes are normally so expensive because of the labour involved in getting at the belt. So once you've got at it to inspect it, £20-30 to change the belt itself doesn't make much difference to the bill.
If you're going to splash out on all that labour to get at it, might as well change it.
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Current advice is to replace, on the petrols new schedule is 36K, diesels stay at 72K. Cost is circa £550 for a petrol.he dealer.
So failure to change the cambelt is reall down to t
Where do you live?
Various options if Alfa won't play ball, a specialist can lift the head and get it sorted or a s/h replacement engine.
Jim
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Surely if the dealer inpected the belt at 36k and were confident enough not to change it, then they were plain wrong. Also, a proper inspection involves removing the belt, I strongly suspect they didn't do this. As for the any document numbers try www.alfaowner.com forum, a very friendly and informative lot!
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I think you'll find you are not the only one with cam belt failure before time on an Alfa.
Its worth finding more info regarding this, on the net worldwide. Then pursue your claim with Alfa.
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Three people at Alfa have stated to me that cambelt service intervals remain uinchanged and that press reports of them being lowered are mistaken (HJ has stated that the service intervals have altered as have the daily telegraph - I'd be interested to know their sources).
So, Alfa have refused to assist in any way when asked by my dealer to help. I've approached them via the customer service line and await a reply (the guy was sympathetic).
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If your belt has gone before the recommended change interval then I would have thought that it would put you in a better position to challenge it's premature failure.
Martin
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This is why the "no warranty on that mate, if it snaps it's not our problem" comments from mechanics didn't bother me when I supplied my own parts for a belt change!
Even if you've done everything as they want you to, it'll be a cold day in Satan's lounge before a garage takes responsibility for a snapped cam belt.
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I have a 1.8TS 156. The Alfa owners club mag. reported at the end of last year that the recommended cam belt change interval had been reduced to 36000 miles.
If I were you,weekendworrier, I would write to both the dealer principle and Alfa UK and put your case to them. Alfa are usually very good with warranty claims and your car is only just out of the 3 year warranty.
As far as I know, the 36000 cambelt inspection involved removing the cover and examaning the plastic tensioners, which are the parts which fail; not the belt.
Good luck
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Alfa have 'reviewed' my case and my dealers zone manager has decided that there is no reason for Alfa to make any goodwill gestures to assist with the repair bill.
To be honest I've been without the car for nearly two weeks and I'm pee'd off with the whole thing. There seems little point persuing it further.
I'm going to get the car repaired by an independent Alfa specialist and give it back to Alfa (it's on an HP agreement).
I'll then become one of the large body of people who say
"Alfa Romeo? Great cars, unless you have to pay the bills..."
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People talk about warranty etc with cars but (in my opinion) that's all irrelevant.
Surely The Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 is all you need here??
You've got a case against the supplying dealer (Goods) as the item failed before it should reasonably be expected to (at 72,000 miles) or you've got a case against the garage that checked the cambelt (Services) for failing to do the job peoperly.
As the (legal) buck stops with the dealer (not Alfa) it would be ideal if you were the original owner and all the servicing had been done at the supplying dealer (and it's still under the same ownership)!
See www.dti.gov.uk/ccp/topics1/saleandsupply.htm#srmv
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Sorry, I kept getting interupted (damn work) and didn't see your last email.
So you don't own the car, the finance company does. I wonder how they'd react to Alfa allowing their car to wrecked? This might be a dangerous route to go down as they could insist on it being repaired at a dealer.
If the interval is still 72,000 miles then I guess the garage could say the belt looked fine but broke unexpectedly (then you're back with the supplying dealer). If it's 36000 then they ought to have advised you to have it changed.
It's a bit messy but, if you're going to get it fixed anyway, then for what it costs, it could be worth issuing a small claims case against the dealer (the one that did the servicing). I believe you can do it on line now.
I've never done this myself (I have had stuff fixed out of warrenty though), so suggest take other advise first.
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I don't feel I have a storng case fo rlegal action - the car is out oif warranty and the dealer insists that the belt was fgine when inspected by them.
I'm looking at buying the car for the settlement figure (it's on HP) and then selling as is to someone who will do the repairs and then sell it. This may end being cheaper than giving it back.
The HP agreement doesn't specify that it must be an Alfa dealer that does any repair work.
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Bear in mind what I said earlier - that the warranty isn't relevant in law (that's why it says 'in addition to you statutory rights'). I've had several items repaired out of g'tee, including a 4 yr old car. In every case they said 'no' at first, buy caved in after very little pressure.
The Sale of Goods act says that goods must be of satisfactory quality.
Aspects of quality are fitness for purpose, freedom from minor defects, appearance and finish, durability and safety.
Durabilty is that item should last a reasonable length of time.
It's the durability aspect that's the tricky one, but for domestic appliances for example, I understand it's considered to be 5 yrs (I always assumed that why manufacturers and shops sell 5 yr w'tees).
I'm guessing that you didn't buy the car new - I don't know if that makes a difference to the SOG act. It'd be worth calling your local Trading Standards dept for some advice.
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Totally echo Bill Payer's sentiments.
It must be fit for the purpose it is supplied for.
If a cambelt snaps within the lifetime that the manufacturer has specified, then either there was an error in the fitting or it isn't fit for purpose. Either way, from a legal point of view you can seek redress.
Of couse they'll say no at first. They'd be mad not to, seeing as how so many people when confronted with this initial refusal will just shrug their shoulders and say "that's life". Depending on the legal awareness of the people you end up dealing with, they might cave in fairly quickly or it might be like pulling teeth.
It doesn't cost you much to kick up a stink and complain like mad, so you might as well.
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Agree with GF1 - standard practice to deny liability - most people will give up and go away at the first hurdle! Follow the advice above, do your research, find out if this a common problem and take it further. Good luck!
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Before you do anything try a solicitor's letter first.
We used to reject claims out of warranty on auto parts but if the customer's solicitor wrote in detailing why there was a case and threatening legal action, we paid " without prejudice".
In our case the sums involved were in the sub £250 range so paying was cheaper than any courst action including Small Claims. Our legal fees in that started at £250 before we went to court.. and could easily run to £000s.
So well worth trying...
madf
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