As you may have seen on the forums, my Mk 4 2.2 VTEC suffered a cambelt failure a few weeks ago...
As a lesson to all I though I'd add up all the expenses so that you know what you might have to pay if you don't have the cambelt replaced under the service guidelines.
Thanks to the good folks here at Lude Generation I found that Performance Autoworks, one of the best 'garages' in the country, are only a few miles away so the car was eventually recovered to PAW and the belts, tensioner etc. were replaced.
Although I was not in VTEC mode when the belt failed, unfortunately some of the valves were damaged. PAW was only able to confirm this once the new belt etc. had been fitted. This meant that I had to make the call as to either scrap the Mk4 or pay to have the head removed, valves replaced etc etc. I decided to have the work done and hence save another Mk4 from the scrap yards.
Are you sitting comfortably? Here are the costs:
Replace cambelt, tensioner, valves etc., etc. - £1127
Vehicle rental £250 (plus £250 deposit)
Taxis - £70
Total cost = £1447.
I've also spent 5 hours in total waiting for recovery, taxi's etc. which could be factored in to the total costs.
To sum up - if you don't know when the cambelt was changed, get it done a.s.a.f.p. It will cost several hundred £££'s but as you can see from my experience, the cost of a belt failure can be soooooo much more expensive...
Dobbs.
Most would have just scrapped or broken theirs.
