2003 Vauxhall Agila Engine Fault

POKEY86

MEMBER
2003 VAUXHALL AGILA
4 CYL
2WD
MANUAL
65,000 MILES

Hi, I'm from the UK

Recently drove the car from Doncaster to London, About 160 miles) it's never had any faults prior besides a very minor accident that caused some minor damage to the passenger side door.

When in London I drove it for a short while & after a little bit of shopping I came back & all it did was Rev & wouldn't start. I got it recovered to a Vauxhall dealership who ran ECU diagnostics (charged at roughly Ã‚ £90/$131) but they said nothing came up.

After 2 days fo checking apparently they've stripped the engine & they've stated that the Timing Belt has snapped & the Pistons arn't firing. They've quoted me an overall cost of Ã‚ £998/$1,470 for a fix.

Does this sound legitimate. I've had some bad dealings with a dealership in the past & I feel a bit pessimistic as, this car has run for 7 years with absolutely no faults whatsoever & there was no indication of any engine fault before this. (It had also passed it's MOT less than a month ago.

1 Reply

MHPAUTOS

MECHANIC
31,937 POSTS

Hi there,

What has amazed me is that it took the workshop so long to find a broken timing belt, this should have been diagnosed in a few minutes. Timing belts do not give a sign that they will fail, there is no pre warning at all, the failure will happen in a micro second. Timing belts must be replaced at given intervals, your service book will have the time frame and your mechanic should have advised that it was due or well over due and failure will result in possible serious engine damage, this is normally bent engine valves, the price of the repair sounds about correct, but this will depend on how many valves are bent. My main concern is the time and cost to diagnose this failure, I hope that they are not charging for this.

Mark (mhpautos)