1.25 zetec 2010 Fiesta timing pulley loose

[bricol]

One of our young engineers had her Fiesta at a local garage for a timing belt replacement as she had no idea when it was last done.

Roll on a week, having battery issues, she had it at Halfords for a battery/alternator check - rev it at 2000rpm and it stopped . . . no nasty noises, none since on the attempted restarts.

Crank pulley is loose - timing belt not being driven - the crank bolt is loose.

Garage, once she got it there says it's not normal road use, no warranty, they would have done the bolt up, Halfords have loosened the bolt to cover themselves (in the 11 days the original garage left it there despite saying they would get it). Telling her she obviously isn;t mechanically minded when she mentioned the torque the bolt should have been done up to - that you can tell they did it up, due to the damaged on the bolt head form their impact gun . . . Which, despite my liking for the original garage, is bol lox!

So, it would appear that engine is an interference engine - but anyone had one survive a belt slippage which causes the belt to remain stopped, not just mis-timed?

I've offered to go take a look with my cheap endoscope, see if we can see any marks in piston tops.

 

[Brad93]

It'll be dead if it has indeed slipped. Off to small claim court mate

 

[tom2207]

it drove in , and didnt drive out ,,,, the discussion is with Halfords , no idea what their policy is for such events. But all in all a nasty position to be in.

 

[Melvyn Best]

Sounds very much like the crank pulley bolt wasn’t tightened correctly , probably only tightened to the initial torque setting but not angle tightened. The garage that changed the belt should be responsible. Halfords reving it to 2000 rpm will not be the cause

 

[minimutly]

Forget the endoscope, cylinder leakage test will tell all.
I would say your claim is against the garage, they never tightened the bolt, although I don't understand the bit about "Halfords loosening the bolt to cover themselves"..

 

[m_c]

My guess is the crank pulley bolt has never been correctly tightened, and the crank pulley has probably started slipping giving the starting/charging issues, and it's just so happened that the key on the timing belt pulley finally gave up when Halfords were checking it.

To pursue it, you'll probably be looking at an independent engineers report, then raising a claim.