New timing belt

[mummyof4kids]

Took my car to my usual garage this morning as the engine light was on. Turns out the timing belts about to go and needs replacing, oh as well as a coolant leak.
Think I'll have a wine tonight 😂

The positive being it was picked up on before it went and took the engine with it. How many years and miles since it was last changed?

@JellyBabiesFan

The positive being it was picked up on before it went and took the engine with it. How many years and miles since it was last changed?

Yeah I'm thankful for that. I've had the car since September, it's got 54k miles on the clock. I'm not sure when or if it was last done all the service paperwork is in the car which is currently at the garage but I'm sure I've seen a timebelt change in there when I've looked before. It's a 15 year old car

That doesn’t make a huge amount of sense, did they elaborate? Was the car running rough? The only scenario I can think of is if the belt jumped a tooth (or teeth) and thus the timing would be out causing the CEL to illuminate. That would cause the car to run a bit rough though.

That doesn’t make a huge amount of sense, did they elaborate? Was the car running rough? The only scenario I can think of is if the belt jumped a tooth (or teeth) and thus the timing would be out causing the CEL to illuminate. That would cause the car to run a bit rough though

You are not thinking about cause and effect. You have assumed the timing belt was the reason for the engine light. OP did not implicitly state that.

I think what happened was the coolant leak caused the engine light to illuminate. The garage has fixed the coolant problem and then also picked up on the need to change the timing belt.

*You are not thinking about cause and effect. You have assumed the timing belt was the reason for the engine light. OP did not implicitly state that.

I think what happened was the coolant leak caused the engine light to illuminate. The garage has fixed the coolant problem and then also picked up on the need to change the timing belt.*

Very true, you could well be correct although a coolant leak/low coolant wouldn’t normally illuminate the CEL. It could be something else completely unrelated but the OP doesn’t provide enough info to take a more educated guess. I have had a car jump a tooth in conjunction with a coil failure in pre OBD II days. Fixed the coil, ran like shit and spent ages trying to figure it out. Only after I’d gone through everything else I thought I’m going to check the cam timing and one cam pulley was a tooth out.

Timing belt change intervals can be by mileage or age. If there's a receipt in the paperwork I'd check how old it is.

What car is it?