Why is that car makers still fit cam belt in new cars and not chains, sure it is cheaper than chain when building the car but a snapped cambelt for the consumer is nothing short of financial disaster. Nissan prove that it can be done time and again by fitting chains to their bread and butter brands. Is the cost of fitting a chain and not some time bomb in the shape of a fibreglass belt worth the maker all the bad PR and loss of consumer loyalty?
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Will stick to Nissans at this point!
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Chains WERE old technology.
Belts came in to reduce noise, reduce the need for adjustment and reduce costs for the manufacturer.
Like everything else, technology has moved on and chains are making a comeback with solutions available for most of the previous drawbacks.
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>>Chains WERE old technology.
Dont know where you got that from.If it was why is the chain coming back?.I cannot say any had a real drawback.Apart from oil feed/tensioner.
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Steve
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Didn't Nissan have some cam-chain problems on their 2.2 and 2.5 diesels? Oh, and Vauxhall had problems, not to mention Porsche, and the Ford V6, and the Jag V8.
Nothing at all wrong with a decent belt set-up. Quiet, clean and easy to change (if designed well).
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There is a thread on this in the Technical section.
In my experience chains are far more reliable. There are one or two poor ones about (VW V6 and Vaux 3.2 come to mind). Never heard of any problems with Nissans. Mercs and most BMWs also use chains; not to mention the majority of modern Fords (Duratec), various Mazdas, Toyotas and so on.
Belts can be OK - but some can be a real pain to change. Often it is not the belts that snap, but some ancilliary part (waterpump, tensioner) has a bearing failure, siezes, wrecks the belt which then wrecks the engine.
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Can't agree more. My brother has just had a belt and tensioners changed on a MK 2 Mondeo. £295 at Fords with 60K guarentee. OK he did it on a 8 year old car with 47k on it. Too early you might say, BUT this will now probably see him out with this car.
The point is, he did it so he can sleep at night and it will not snap on Dartmoor at 2 am, or in a French layby. If it had a chain the thought would not even enter your mind. Regular synthetic oil changes can see a chain do 150k+, and even then it will not snap, just rattle, if at all. The difference in cost can't be more than £40 at the construction stage.
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That's the point though. £40 is a huge amount. How many Foci for example have been made since 1998? Thousands upon thousands. Lets say Ford decided to put a chain on all of them and that chain cost £40 more.
You see where I'm going with this. I'd rather my car had a chain - that way I wouldn't need to change it in about 20k which I'm going to have to do as it is but I can understand why belts are used. As many have said, as long as you know about the belt change interval and look after the car, it shouldn't be a problem.
Of course, I realise I've set myself up for a timing belt snap now. Keep your eyes peeled for "My Focus Snapped It's Belt" in Technical Matters.
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Adam
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Ford have moved to chains for a lot of their recent engines.
Cost of a chain over and above a belt would be nothing like £40 at the manufacturing stage, it would be a few pounds.
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Belts came in to reduce noise
Is that why my 4 year old chain driven engine Corsa sounds like a tank compaired to my husbands 10 year old belt driven version??
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Chains rely on precision machined parts which are heat trated after machining and then assmbled using automatic machines. They then operate over cogs and are spread over a distance lubricated by engine oil.
If the oil is not clean and changed regularly, the moving parts of the chain wear. As the chain is under stress particularly when changing gear badly (fast acceleration or deceleration of engine) then eventually the side plates of the chain stretch, and the chain becomes noisy.
With rubber belts, the same happens but the matreials of belts allow for some stretch and the material returns to its original shape. Steel just stretches, tolerances incraese and noise results. Belts eventually do wear.
Badly abused chains - bad gear changes/dirty oil or infrequent oil changes/low oil - may lead to a chain breaking or jumping the teeth on the sprockets.
madf
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Whats wrong with shafts and bevel gears I say!
Even more Bring back Pushrods!
Sidevalves!
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Bought a Saab 9000 LPT a few years ago. The car had a full Saab history from the local dealer and even though bought privately from a friend he insisted I took out a warranty.
I remember ringing the dealers and asking when the belt needed to be changed as as told very snootily "Saabs have chains not belts - they don't break and ndon't need replacing".
I bought the car adn took it in for a service a few months later. I said the engine seemed a little noisy.. " Ah yes sir the chain is worn and needs changing!"
Luckily I had the warranty, but I had more than a few comments to say many of which included the words 'Honda', 'reliability' and ' best engines in the world'
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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I have known two cases where chains broke catastophically, once with a Toyota Crown, and more recently with as Nissan Primera. I don't know what kind of servicing the Toyota had, but in the case of the Nissan I don't think that the oil was changed in years.
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Primera is a bit sensitive to keeping the oil clean. There are some small passageways and if they bung up then the chain lubrication fails and it *will* break. Cams will also wear out very quickly.
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I presume it still gives plenty of notice before this happens? Or at least some notice. You don't get any with belts.
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Yes, it will rattle badly when you start up. Eventually it will rattle all the time. Then it will break..
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