Ford Custom Tourneo – any thoughts

FFS a modern engine shouldn’t need that kind of watchful preemptive checking

Why not. Takes minutes. Can prevent you from being sat at the side of the road a long way from home and let's you catch issues as they develop rather than once they are a serious issue.

Could always buy a biturbo VW transporter I hear those run for ever between services

I don't think either of them are well engineered. Ford have known about the issues with wet belts for years in both their diesel and petrol lumps. With VW the later 199/204 charge cooled biturbos are better than the 180, but they still seem to suffer from various low milage problems, possibly down to ring design, possibly down to being assembled by communists.

A timing belt is not an item any normal user would ever consider to be a thing you'd have to check. Sure change it when you hit a certain milage or age, but inspect it like your tyre pressure? That's bonkers.

I have 2021 Vauxhall Combo 1.5 diesel. This has reported issues with the camchain that links the camshafts - there is also a dry belt from the crankshaft. The smaller Fords use the same engine. Currently for the 1.5 engine there is change of oil spec from Jan this year that even the dealers don't know about and a revised set of camshafts, 8mm pitch chain and rocker cover (not cheap!) that seem to be impossible to get hold of. If the current chain goes pop the engine is lunched.

I expected emission control issues on a modern engine, but not basic engine architecture.

So my mate, who runs a classic car restoration business, helped build my Cinq into a proper track car, builds engines & gearboxes for fun, designs and builds train simulators for actual train companies; is more engineer than mechanic, just had his transit custom MS:RT serviced last night at a Ford main dealer. The ranting text messages went like this:

I booked my van into ford main dealers to have the wetbelt changed, I picked it up today and asked why there was no oil or filter on my itemised bill...... "we didn't change it sir, you didn't ask us to" ........"Don't you need to drain it out to change the belt?" ....... "Yes, you had not specified an oil change so we strained the oil and put it back in, it all looked ok" ..."WTF!!!!! I see you have charged me for a waterpump gasket, I cannot see a waterpump?" ..... "It looked good so we refitted it." ........ "There is no coolant ether, have you strained that?" ......... "yes, sir, it looked and tested fine so we refitted it...... we have your £995 bill to pay bit we saved you £180" ......... "You are a bunch of ^%#$s  and I will never bring my van here again!"

then tonight:

“For sale, transit custom, Serviced 24 hours ago with new wet belts, now seized solid on the M1 at junction 21! Ford £&@“€>|## €€>|%|> are a massive bunch of £&@#s!

arse.

And there is why I do my own work

Inc timing belts

Reading that again. He has a receipt id be having that dumped on their forecourt

They've obviously f****d something up for it to fail like that.

But for information, you don't need to take the sump off or drain the oil to do the main wet belt. It's all done via the front cover, so if there's no belt degradation, then there's no need to remove the sump.

The oil pump is also driven via a wet belt, but there is no official service interval for them, and I've never heard of one failing, and there have been other engines that have had a belt driven oil pump before the EcoBlue engine.

However, I'd guess they never even removed the water pump, as you wouldn't go to the hassle of removing it, just to refit it with a new gasket. You do however need to drain the coolant to get the front cover off.

Bad batch of tensioners floating about or something to do with a bolt that's re-used that seems to cause failure shortly after changing the wet belt, according to FB anyway.

Just buy a Berlingo!