We bought our Swift Sundance 2 years ago and had the cambelt changed as advised, recent freak snowfall on the south coast caught me coming home. Parked up and temperature dropped to -4 overnight. Went to start about 10am and didn't fire up as usual. \eventually started but with a pronounced knock, Engine management light so stopped the engine and used my OBD scanner and showed Camshaft sensor error. Called an engineer and confirmed my readings. I couldn't get a garage to take the wagon straight away so changed the sensor. NOT THE PROBLEM.
However, when I removed the flat piece of plastic which literally, just covers the head from view, I found the depression in the head was full of water and the Injectors sitting in rust soup.
After a great deal of time researching I found a reference to water ingress as a common problem with Ducato vans and one case of water freezing around the cambelt area and the belt jumping teeth when started. This was confirmed by my garage's 'Cam Belt Man'.
Another new cambelt, tensioner, etc., and £600 later all ready to go....except power was down and as we ventured 20 miles down the road things gradually got worse. Less power meant lower gears and higher revs. Returning home got worse as the engine management light lit up and dropped into limp mode, fortunately just a mile or so down the road.
Relayed back to garage.
When I had the cambelt replaced this time I asked for the replaced parts, as I now always do, and the tensioner appeared fine from the outside but surprisingly had significant rust and corrosion on the engine side. This is bad enough if 10 years since new, but was I thought, to have been changed when cambelt replaced 2 years ago.
This appears to be a design fault with these vehicles, anyone else had similar problems?
However, when I removed the flat piece of plastic which literally, just covers the head from view, I found the depression in the head was full of water and the Injectors sitting in rust soup.
After a great deal of time researching I found a reference to water ingress as a common problem with Ducato vans and one case of water freezing around the cambelt area and the belt jumping teeth when started. This was confirmed by my garage's 'Cam Belt Man'.
Another new cambelt, tensioner, etc., and £600 later all ready to go....except power was down and as we ventured 20 miles down the road things gradually got worse. Less power meant lower gears and higher revs. Returning home got worse as the engine management light lit up and dropped into limp mode, fortunately just a mile or so down the road.
Relayed back to garage.
When I had the cambelt replaced this time I asked for the replaced parts, as I now always do, and the tensioner appeared fine from the outside but surprisingly had significant rust and corrosion on the engine side. This is bad enough if 10 years since new, but was I thought, to have been changed when cambelt replaced 2 years ago.
This appears to be a design fault with these vehicles, anyone else had similar problems?
- Model
- Ducato 2.3, 130,
