1.6hdi Timing Belt 6yr/60k: New Service Interval

[800HDI]

I had the cambelt go on an b reg VW polo whilst driving at about 40 mph.

Got the RAC out to tow me home. Fitted a new belt the following weekend and it started and drove like before, and did so for another 3 years before i sold it.

[prunty]

I bought my 2007 1.6 Hdi van in Oct 2010 with 50K on the clock and had the timing belt changed for no other reason in that I usually get it done after a purchase just for piece of mind. However I was totally unaware of the lengthy recommendations by Citroen, 150K seems very long...

[Ol'Jeffers]

You know I have a feeling that that figure should be 150,000 kilometres....perhaps someone who speaks better French than I do
could pop onto a French Citroen forum to find out what they say...

[evdama]

You know I have a feeling that that figure should be 150,000 kilometres....perhaps someone who speaks better French than I do
could pop onto a French Citroen forum to find out what they say...

Another case of that-
Way back in the early 80's the London Post Office took on a small fleet of Honda CB250RS bikes to cope with the traffic.
They misread (or dismissed as a typo) the oil change interval of 1500 miles as 15000.
The RS had no filter for its 1litre capacity -guess what happened......

I had a couple of these bikes up to the mid 90's and put 100,000 on both by putting quality 10/40 glug in every 1000.

Crossword joke:
Fifteen across -"Postman"
How many letters?
F**Kin' thousands!

[David Ampofo]

Stop Press.
Having spoken to three other Citroen dealers AND Citroen customer services I can re-confirm the original timing belt service interval for '57 1.6hdi IS 10yrs/150k miles and not 6yrs/60k as I was told - so apologies to everyone. Seems the service manager mis-saw an email from Evans Halshaw head office recommending 6/60 for post'09 models and thought it applied to all Berlingos (but as my car is only 4yrs 10months old anyway they still shouldn't have told me to get it changed.;-( Additionally he said that if the timing belt failed before this period then Citroen would pay for any damage to be rectified! Can this really be believed!?
I know some people think to change their timing belt at 40k just to be on the safe side. I wonder how many of you are similarly cautious?

I've only experienced timing belts on recent VW's and now on our '56 1.6HDi Berlingo. On the VW's I've just gone by whatever the manufacturer's recommendation was - though they seem to change with monotonous regularity. It was around 400 beer tokens on our Passat, which was done last year at 40K miles, and I'll probably stick with the 10yrs/50k recommendation unless I lose my bottle.

I don't drive a car hard, and I'd like to think that being reasonably gentle with it lessens the chance of failure microscopically, though I may well be proved wrong.

It wouldn't be so bad if there was some sort of fail safe when a belt breaks, but the extent of the damage when one fails can be pretty disastrous - probably worse if you've got 4000 rpm on the clock than if it fails at tickover.

Personally I hate the idea of timing belts, although I've never had one fail. I guess they were introduced to save on manufacturing costs, but gimme a rattly old timing chain - at least I know it ain't going to break.

If Fiat can make "valve safe" engines,why not all manufacturers?
You may accuse me of being cynical,but could it be profit orientated?

[David Ampofo]

Mine went yesterday 2010 70k and just had service done 2 weeks ago