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Cambelt


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I've read an earlier thread on here about Cam belts.

Ours just went this morning when we tried to start up.

Apparantly its going to cost £800 - £1000 to get things fixed.

We had to get it towed to a specialist garage 15 miles away as none of the local garages ( Buckingham ), had the required tools required to service a Lexus.

Moral of the story is to get your Cam belt checked if in any doubt. Its very costly if it"goes"

This is a "Y" reg car and it was my wifes sons, but he hasn't a clue when the last cam belt was fitted.

Now waiting for "official" report from the garage. Keeping fingers crossed its not needing a new engine, otherwise it could be a scrapper.

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Sorry to hear about that :crybaby:

How many miles had your car done ?

It's worth emphasing, for those who might not be aware, that Lexus changed the originally-stated 100,000 miles/10 years interval for cambelt change down to 60,000 miles/6 years.

I'm a bit baffled though that some garages seemed to think your car was too complicated for them to work on ?

Fingers crossed that not too much damage was done, particularly if it was at startup and not high speed.

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Well, it seems Lexus Glasgow are still not up to scratch with this new information, going by this e-mail i received from the a couple of months ago;

Good Morning Mr Hutchison, Apologies for the delay in responding to your e-mail. The current cost of the 80k service inclusive of parts/labour and VAT is £175.00. Dependant on age/mileage the brake fluid and coolant may be due for renewal (coolant is changed every 4yrs/40k whichever first & brake fluid every 2 yrs from 1st date of reg). The costs respectively are £72.85 & £61.10 inclusive of VAT. For your info. the timing belt should be changed every 6yrs/100k whichever 1st. We can also provide courtesy cars or a collection/delivery service if required, usually about 4/5 working days noticed required for these), a normal booking without these requirements can be taken within 2 days. If you wish to confirm a booking, please do not hesitate to contact me. RegardsMark Mark Montgomerie

Service Manager

Lexus Glasgow

163 St.Georges Road

GLASGOW

G3 6LB

Direct Dial - 0141 352

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Sorry hear this.

As Stevie has said cambelts (with tensioner and idler) need to be changed every 60,000 miles/6 years WHICHEVER COMES FIRST.

It might be cheaper to get a second hand engine from a crashed IS200- plenty of IS200's being broken on eBay. If you do buy a second hand engine, you should hear it running before buying it. Also, replace the cambelt (with tensioner and idler) on the second hand engine for peace of mind.

And yes, the IS200 is not a complicated car to work on, I changed my cambelt on my drive using nothing more than a Halfords socket, screwdriver and spanner sets, a hammer and axle stands/trolleyjacks!

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I don't know how long the garage will take to strip the engine and get back to us, to let us know what its actually going to cost etc

The car had done about 120,000 miles up until now, but you don't really think about these things till they happen.

We had it earmarked for service back in August, but then I bust my leg and was out of action for 5 weeks, then the guy was on holiday, and from there things just drifted.

Unfortunately my mechanical skills are next to zero, and its my wife who does the driving ( my sight isn't my greatest assett ).

I think the local garages here just didn't want to have a Lexus on their hands for some reason, none of them even considered taking it in.

Garage was just on the phone there for first report.!! He said it was the timebelt that had gone along with the tensioner and the cam belt was down to about a 1/4 of what it should have been. He says he now needs to strip the engine down further to see how many valves have gone.

Doesn't look good does it?

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120,000! to be fair it was due, and its an expensive oversight. mines just hit 60,000. i dont feel it needs it doing this early so i've planned to have it done on the 80,000 service

To be fair though, the original poster says that he doesn't know if/when the belt was changed previously. e.g. it could have been changed at 60,000 previously and this was a second belt that failed.

But if it was the original belt then it wouldn't be too suprising to see it failing at 120,000 miles.

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120,000! to be fair it was due, and its an expensive oversight. mines just hit 60,000. i dont feel it needs it doing this early so i've planned to have it done on the 80,000 service

I'd pop the timing cover off and have a look at the condition of the belt if I was you. If there are any chunks missing/tears in the belt then I'd get it replaced ASAP!

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Blimey 120k! Would be good if that was the original belt!

I try and make it habit to stick to 60k even if the book says it can be a lot later, better to be safe than sorry - especially if it's an interference type engine!

Just actually about to fit the second cambelt to my Aristo - did the first around 55k and this one is around 40k but it's just convenient to lose the car for a few days now so playing it safe and also swapping all the ancilleries :)

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Cam belt should be changed at the REVISED lexus service time 60,000/6yrs as has been said above...

and also is it right that if you cam belt does go your engine will be ok as its a NON INTERFERENCE engine....? :unsure:

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I had mine changed at 6 years (45K miles) by Lexus. They put a sticker on the engine cover quoting the date and mileage. This is a good idea. I had it done by them, even though it cost more than a local garage, because it is one of those jobs which you can't afford to go wrong and you would probably have some come back if it wasn't.

Buying second hand, if there was no documentary evidence I would assume it had not been done and I would get it done at the prescribed age/mileage. It would be easy for the first owner to skip this replacement if servicing was not done by Lexus or the cost was off-putting.

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and also is it right that if you cam belt does go your engine will be ok as its a NON INTERFERENCE engine....? :unsure:

No, unfortunately that's not right, as at least one LOC member found out fairly recently. There was a big discussion about whether it was non-interference or interference, and the conclusion was that it is very definitely an interference engine in the IS200 in VVTi guise. I will try and find a link to the thread.

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Cam belt should be changed at the REVISED lexus service time 60,000/6yrs as has been said above...

and also is it right that if you cam belt does go your engine will be ok as its a NON INTERFERENCE engine....? :unsure:

From what I can see the 1G-FE VVTi is interference - there's this big thread all about it:

http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum/ind...showtopic=54124

If it's non-interference you could just chuck a new belt on and off you go - interference means there's a good chance the pistons can hit things they're not supposed to. If you've got a non interference engine type it means it's just an inconvenience when it snaps - whereas if it's interference type it means your mechanic can pull your pants down!

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That thread can be quite confusing because first Mat says it's non-interference, but read it all the way through and you'll see that the original poster's engine was damaged even though it was only idling when the belt snapped, and Mat agrees that some information that's going round about it being non-interference is incorrect. Definitely an interference engine.

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Nope, interference. See that thread for a full discussion. It's a bit confusing because first Mat says it's non-interference, but read it all the way through and you'll see that the original poster's engine was damaged even though it was only idling when the belt snapped, and Mat agrees that some information that's going round about it being non-interference is incorrect. Definitely an interference engine.

Already updated my post before you replied :P

Bit of a bummer though isn't it!

My engine is interference type too :(

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Cam belt should be changed at the REVISED lexus service time 60,000/6yrs as has been said above...

and also is it right that if you cam belt does go your engine will be ok as its a NON INTERFERENCE engine....? :unsure:

From what I can see the 1G-FE VVTi is interference - there's this big thread all about it:

http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum/ind...showtopic=54124

If it's non-interference you could just chuck a new belt on and off you go - interference means there's a good chance the pistons can hit things they're not supposed to. If you've got a non interference engine type it means it's just an inconvenience when it snaps - whereas if it's interference type it means your mechanic can pull your pants down!

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Now I've edited my post too ! :P :lol:

Yeah, the fact that it's interference means you really shouldn't go past the manufacturer's interval for change, could be a *big* bill if you do :crybaby:

Phil, I understand where you're coming from, I got Lexus to inspect my cam belt for free when I bought the car (I didn't get it from them). I didn't have any details on if/when the belt had been changed before (my car had done 50K miles but was nearly 9 years old. Lexus told me that the belt looked ok visually, but even so I didn't want to risk it and got it changed (along with the water pump, which you may as well change at the same time because you have to take all the belts off to get at that too).

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:lol:

This all makes me thing there are advantages to the interference design (forgetting that it can smash itself to bits at anytime) - wonder what they all are?

Also makes me wonder why don't they all just use chains and non-interference type engines?

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To achieve economy and emissions modern engines are using higher and higher compression ratios making it almost impossible to have non-interference.

Nice one cheers mate, was wondering as there had to be a good reason for them being like this! I've got my Cars for Dummies book to get through now to get a better understanding :lol:

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Just to give you all an update on the cam belt problem.

We found out the history of the car and the belt was changed at 70,000 miles before my stepson bought it.

That means it done 40,000 miles with the new belt in 4 years. ( it had done 115,000 in total ).

So it was just bad luck in the end.

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There has been lots of discussion on cambelts, but no-one seemed to me to nail the proper interval for my 300, as a different engine it seemed that 100K was still OK. I am on 60K now and just to make sure I e-mailed Lexus Derby to check........that was a month ago and....you've guessed it....no reply.

If they can't be bothered to talk to me why should I bother to use them ?? and what should i tell my son who is currently looking for an IS250.....hmmmmm.

Can anyone out there in the real world (as opposed to the showroom world) nail this for me once and for all ???

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That's strange - I emailed them last week and got a reply back within an hour or two?

How old is the car Janet? I'd usually say 60k or 5 years is about enough time without taking a gamble - I had mine done two years ago and I'm having it all changed again next week!

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