Hello, can any one offer any advice?
Last week I got the cambelt changed on my 100k miles HDI Citroen Xsara Picasso. When I picked it up, I noticed a clattering noise. Hoping it would go away (yes, I know ... ) I drove on until yesterday when the noise got really bad, the power steering packed in and a battery charge warning appeared. Shortly after there was a big bang but the car continued to run.
Took the car to the dealers and it would seem the cranshaft pulley rubber interior had disintegrated and fallen off.
The dealer claims the pulley would not have been touched to change the cambelt. Does anyone know if this is true?
My suspision is they removed it, didn't retighten it sufficiently, it was then allowed to work loose and destroy itself.
I was charged for the cranshaft pulley repair though they did discount it after I argued my case, as I had been in the week before and they considered me to be a regular customer.
If I discover they were telling porkies about the crankshaft pulley, I will pursue to get my money back.
Thanks.
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Not familiar with the car but it could be argued that the deteriorating rubber should have been noticed, you could have a claim against them for that, you'd need an independent engineers report and the old pulley part would be useful - I bet you didn't keep it.
For best results the car would have had to have been inspected before the (new pulley) work was done.
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The crank pulley WOULD have been touched, how on earth would they have timed the engine up without putting the locking pin in through the hole in the bottom pulley?
This is also one of the tests to confirm the pulley is still fit for service.
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It might be possible to change the cambelt without removing the pulley, but generally it is removed to allow access to get the bottom cover off. Crankshaft pulley failure is well known on HDi engines, and any dealer worth their salt would have inspected it at the time of cambelt change and advised a change if necessary (in fact I would change it as a matter of course at 100k if it was original!). It may just have been that they tightened the aux belt up after the change and that wrecked the pulley - seems a bit of a conincidence though. I wonder if there is some else driving round in a HDi engined car that just been in for a new cambelt, and that annoying rattling noise has mysteriously disappeared.....???? You were probably lucky it didn't throw the belt off and behind the cambelt and rip that off wrecking the engine!
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RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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The dealer claims the pulley would not have been touched to change the cambelt.
I'm not familiar with this engine, but I've never done a timing belt yet that didn't involve removing the crank pulley. Even if you can somehow manoevre the timing belt off around it, it makes life ten times more difficult to refit as you have no way of seeing whether the belt teeth are positively engaged with the teeth on the sprocket.
On the Mondeo TD engine, there isn't enough clearance between the air-con pipes and the pulley to get the belt off, and the same has been true for various reasons on every other engine type I've done this job on.
Cheers
DP
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The bottom crank pulley or harmonic balancer to give it the correct PSA Peugeot / Citroen name is a very well known failure point in the trade.
Any decent mechanic who knows there PSA lumps would check the pulley by timing the engine up FIRST before removing the old cambelt, the bottom pulley also has the hole for the timing locking pin in it as well.
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My bottom pulley on my 406 HDi nearly failed last week,but I managed to catch it in time,and had it replaced by my local garage.
Spurious part is about £60,genuine dealer part is £142 from my local Peugeot dealer.Guess which one I had no choice in buying due to non availability of the other?
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What does this dodgy pulley drive? And why made of rubber not steel?
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It's the main pulley at the crank end,and drives everything else above it.
As to why it's rubber and not steel,well,it is French,but it is rubber internally,encased in a steel ring,and it's the rubber that eventually wears out.
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As mentioned in a previous thread the pulley in my 98 2.1td went. The only indication was on the same day when the power steering seemed to temporarily stop working for a few seconds. Fortunately going very slowly when it went bang.
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The pulley on these engines is a sandwich - metal hub bonded to a rubber ring, bonded in turn to an outer ring which carries the grooves for the auiliary drive belt.
It is there as a torsional vibration damper (nothing to do with engine balance) and is put there to limit the amplitude of potentially damaging torsional vibrations (twisting) in the crankshaft.
All decent engines will have one of these fitted, PSA just got the detailing wrong on this one.
659.
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