What idiot invented the wet belt?

[BrickBiscuit]

Never heard of wet belts. Until I took a relative's Citroen to my local garage to see why the oil light was on, four months and 3,000 miles after a main-dealer service and with 30,000 on the clock. Before I finished the first sentence they said 'wet belt'. They said the belt shows cracking and wear. It's going back to Citroen for a warranty inspection. My garage has a wet-belt guy on call who does nothing but. Replacements start below 20,000 miles. With main-dealer servicing going up a third in price between service intervals, and wet belts being really needy in terms of oil quality and change frequency, this problem will only increase as people can't afford the maintenance. Having learned this, I will never buy another car without a timing chain. And if anyone knows the dumbf*ck who invented the wet belt, shove them in a bath of oil and ask them how they feel running round.

We’ve got one in our Fiesta that we’re about to replace at 60,000 miles. It’ll cost £1,400 but it’s the only work we’ve had done on the car and it’s a 67 reg so I’m not overly upset by the cost of replacement.

It's shocking, isn't it? I'm so glad I found out about wet belts when researching what vehicle to buy. I'll never buy one with a wet belt as, even worse than you've described, they can fail catastrophically without warning while driving down the motorway.

I got stung with this 🥲 £2,300. It is the only repair I've had to do on my car and I love it otherwise 🥲

I agree although I do more than shove them in a bath of oil!
I broke down out in the middle of nowhere, no wifi or phone signal had to walk miles before I got a signal. Rang the other half to get the details of the break down service to find out they hadn't added it on when the insurance was re-newed.
I'm still paying the loan off that I had to take out to get it repaired, over £2500.

Yeah, I got rid of my fiesta because of this. They’re known for it blowing up. The car I replaced it with also has one (which I didn’t realise until a year later) - and so does my DD’s, that’s Ford, Nissan and Citroen I think they’re quite common now.
Absolutely moronic idea, but apparently if you’re fastidious about oil changes (probably before they’re due) you ‘should’ be ok.

When I was looking for a small second hand car the market seemed to be flooded with Fiesta 1.1 petrols for this exact reason - people offloading them prior to needing the wet belt changing.

Yep, we’ve been stung with our Peugeot. Cost us a fortune. We then had all sorts of issue when the garage replaced it as they caused a leak in the oil tank that keeps messing up and we have to keep getting it repaired under warranty.

Ben Elton's Ministry of Crap Design certainly lives on in the motoring world. Wet belts, no more spare tyres, puffin crossings, smart motorways, low-emission zones; all solving one problem by creating another, often worse.

I got rid of my Ford Focus when it was time to replace this, it was too expensive a job relative to the value of the car.

If it’s the oil pressure light that’s on and it’s been driven there’s a good chance it’s toast. The belt breaks down gradually, the debris blocks the oil pick-up which starves the engine of oil, oil pressure light comes on and terminal damage ensues. Chains are no guarantee of trouble-free motoring either, certain engines are notorious for timing chain issues.

Exactly the same with my Citroen days before Christmas last year and had to pay for a hire car for the festive weeks. I otherwise love the car and it’s the only thing I’ve had to have done to it, but it was unexpected at 5 years old and under 30,000 miles. I agree, the wet belt inventor can get in the bin!

... oh and those blinding LED headlights too. Not to mention LED street lights, which cause bright spots and shadows (and confuse wildlife) while the previous sodium lighting had a much more even, though yellow, bathe of light.

Had this on our Ford focus. Oil light came
on quickly followed by complete loss of power. On the M5. Luckily we managed to pull safely. Long story short managed to catch it just before the belt failed. Sold it to We Buy Any Car and got Honda instead. If you look on Facebook there are dedicated groups and literally thousands of stories, mainly related to Fords. Only a matter of time before someone gets killed as a result.

I have a Vauxhall Crossland 2017. My brakes failed whilst driving , didn’t respond and I nearly crashed into another car. The dash said engine fault. The AA said mostly likely due to the wet belt, towed me home and car now undriveable. I have no idea what to do, I can’t get it to a garage. Would a wet belt problem cause the brakes to fail?

Just had mine changed on the advice of a friend who is a mechanic. Never heard of it before. Cost £850 on a 69 plate, 60,000 miles Peugeot and the garage said the filter was full of gunk so it really needed doing.

They’ve advised oil and filter changes every 6/12 rather than annually as I have been doing.

They also said that the design on most Fords makes it a much bigger and much more expensive job.

Had this on my Peugeot at 35000 miles. Engine would just cut out and then would restart, until eventually it didn’t! Managed to get it to the garage but it was there almost a month as it’s a full day job and they were very busy! £1000 to repair and nearly as much in hire car costs( my garage is fantastic but only has manual courtesy cars and I drive an automatic) A very expensive fault.
That said, it’s the only issue I have had with my car in almost 3 years so I ( almost) forgive it!

My car failed on the motorway on Christmas Eve, had to be brought home on a flat bed, AA tech reckons it’s the wet belt (which I had never heard of). I’m not looking forward to the repair bill. Didn’t know this was a “thing” at all - I’ve driven a focus for the last decade with no issues at all. I’ll be changing this car at the first opportunity.

Dry belts are absolutely fine and still exist. No need to go exclusively timing chain. But yes avoiding wet belts makes total sense.

Government again with their impossible environmental demands on the motor industry.................All industries come to that ?!

We have a Ford Fiesta that needed a wet belt change. Took it out to Beccles in Suffolk for almost half the cost they wanted in Cambridge. We had to time it with a break but it was well worth it.

Bought an old Focus with 175,000 miles on it for £450........Seven years ago now !............Car manufacturing seems to be regressing rather than improving !

I wouldn't buy a car with a wet belt, but they're not automatically bad.

The issue comes when people cheap out of having regular servicing and don't make sure the garage knows what they're doing and uses the correct, specific oil for the wet belt, e.g. the Ford Focus EcoBoost. Also you need to get it replaced at about 10k miles.

I would bet that most of the people who complain about these sort of issues don't follow the servicing intervals in their manual. I know so many people that barely get their cars serviced and then cry foul when things crap out and they're in for massive repairs. Shocked Pikachu face.

Also, the cars that have them are very popular and have sold millions of models, so if more people own a particular car, you'll hear more things about them just because there are more owners - you don't hear from the majority that have no trouble.

This is why you buy a Honda with a timing chain

62 plate civic on 100k here without a single fault since new.

Pumas used to have a belt which was notorious for having issues, but they’ve now gone back to a chain driven engine. Much more reliable.

I forgot touch screens too. You have to take your eyes off the road to operate the fan, for example, whereas before you could use muscle memory to work the knobs without looking. As @Joeninety says, 'Car manufacturing seems to be regressing rather than improving !' (or at least the intelligence of the designers does).