A rattle from the front of the engine for the first few seconds on a cold start, then nothing. Or a light on the dash and a code somebody has read out as “timing”. Most people arrive at this page with the words timing chain already in their head, and often they’re right. But it’s a conclusion, not a symptom, and on some engines it’s the wrong one. Ten minutes of reading here can stop you paying four figures for the wrong job.
A dry cambelt is rubber, it runs outside the engine away from the oil, and it’s replaced on a mileage or time interval whether it looks tired or not. Nothing about it is a surprise. It’s a planned job with a planned price.
A wet belt is a cambelt running inside the engine, in the oil. Ford’s 1.0 EcoBoost and PSA’s 1.2 PureTech both use one. As the belt ages it sheds material, that material ends up in the sump and blocks the oil pickup, and the engine starts being starved of the oil it depends on. It also chatters on a cold start in a way that any sensible owner would call a chain. If that’s what you turn out to have, it’s a job we do constantly, from £599+VAT, and it’s a different repair with a different urgency.
A chain is steel, lubricated by engine oil, and has no service interval at all. It doesn’t snap out of the blue. It stretches, a fraction at a time, as the pins and plates wear and as the plastic guides and the tensioner lose their grip on it. The camshafts drift out of step with the crankshaft, valve timing goes with them, and the engine control unit notices before the driver does. Which of the three you’ve got decides the price, the parts and how long you can reasonably leave it, so it’s worth settling first.
None of those is proof on its own. A failing cam sensor, its wiring, low oil pressure or a fuelling fault can all read much the same from the driver’s seat, and a chain that has genuinely stretched usually gives notice through codes and noise long before it jumps. One that has jumped stops the car.
Our diagnostic is £69. That buys stored and pending codes read and interpreted rather than recited, the freeze-frame data from the moment the fault set, live data watched while the engine runs so cam timing can be compared against crank position, and the noise heard from cold by the person who would be taking the engine apart. That last part matters more than people expect.
The £69 is usually credited against the repair when the work is booked in with us, but it’s job dependent and not automatic on smaller jobs. It’s decided case by case and made clear before you commit to anything. Most diagnostics are same-day. Deeper fault finding isn’t, because a fault that only appears under load or after a few miles has to be driven to be found, and road testing can’t be rushed into a slot.
This is the part most people are quietly worried about, and it’s fair. A chain that has been left a long time, or one that has jumped, can mean bent valves or damage up in the cylinder head, and that isn’t something anyone can see from outside.
What happens is straightforward. The front of the engine comes off, what’s in there gets explained and shown to you, and the job does not grow by a single part until you’ve been asked. Nothing starts without your approval. And one legitimate outcome of opening an engine is being told the repair is worth more than the car, which we’d rather say to your face than discover halfway through and bury in an invoice.
It’s a bigger job than a belt, even though the chain isn’t a service item. The front of the engine has to come apart to reach it, and on plenty of engines the sump comes off too, because the oil pump is driven by its own short chain down there and that wears alongside the main one.
A proper kit is the chain, the tensioner, the guide rails, the sprockets, and the oil pump chain where the engine has one. Fitting a new chain back against worn guides and a tired tensioner is how a job ends up being done twice: the chain is only as accurate as the things holding it in line. Since almost all the cost sits in the labour to get in there, doing it once properly is the cheaper route even when it doesn’t look it on the day. Exact scope depends on the engine, and it’s confirmed at quote stage before you agree to anything.
You’ll find figures online that look like answers and aren’t. The ranges published by booking platforms cover belts and chains together, on every engine ever built, which makes them useless for deciding whether the quote in your hand is fair.
The engine decides the cost. Whether the sump has to come off. Whether there’s an oil pump chain in the kit. How much of the front of the engine has to be dismantled to get a clear run at the timing cover. Two cars with the same rattle can be a long way apart on the bill.
What you get instead is an itemised written quote with parts and labour separated, after the diagnosis, and nothing begins until you’ve approved it. We do publish prices where a job is consistent enough to publish one: £69 for the diagnostic, and wet belt replacement from £599+VAT for the readers who find out that’s what they’ve actually got.
Timing drive work is most of what goes on in this workshop. Belts in oil, chains, guides, tensioners, components that wore out early because they were starved of oil, and engines opened up to find out why rather than just to fit new parts. A lot of that is Ford, Peugeot and Citroen, and the reason is the shared design: the 1.0 EcoBoost and the 1.2 PureTech both run a cambelt in oil. That concentration is a consequence of one fault, not a limit on what comes through the door, and all makes and models are welcome here, petrol, diesel, hybrid and electric.
Parts are a full kit of quality, vehicle-appropriate components from suppliers we use every day, GSF and Euro Car Parts among them, rather than a vague promise of a complete kit. You speak to the team directly, not a call centre or a booking platform, and the person who listened to your engine from cold is the person who takes it apart. The job is signed off with a road test and a handover where you’re told, in plain English, what was found inside.
We work from a single unit on the Medway City Estate in Rochester, just off the A289. We’re not in Dartford and we won’t pretend to be: our regular patch is the Medway towns and Gravesend. From Dartford it’s the A2 east, past Ebbsfleet and Gravesend, onto the M2 and off at Strood for the A289, and it’s a run people choose to make rather than one we claim as local.
They make it because a timing job is worth doing once, by someone who does them constantly, and because the diagnosis and the figure both come before anyone picks up a tool. If the car won’t start, is stuck in limp mode or has been standing for months, we do have our own recovery truck rather than a collection service bought in from someone else, so ask how far it’s going before you make other arrangements.
There's no honest single figure, and the ranges you'll see on booking sites lump belts and chains together across every engine there is. The cost turns on whether the sump has to come off, whether there's an oil pump chain in the kit, and how much of the front of the engine has to be dismantled. After the diagnosis you get an itemised written quote with parts and labour separated, and nothing starts without your approval.
Bigger than a belt, yes. The front of the engine has to come apart to reach the chain, and on many engines the sump comes off as well so the oil pump chain can be done at the same time. That's why the labour dominates the bill even though the chain itself isn't a service item. The exact scope varies by engine and is confirmed at quote stage.
Not over the phone, no. A worn chain slapping its guides before oil pressure takes up the slack and a wet belt starting to break down both sound like a rattle that clears after a few seconds. If it's a 1.0 EcoBoost or a 1.2 PureTech, a belt in oil is the first thing to rule out, because that's a different job at a different price. The £69 diagnostic settles it, with the engine heard from cold here.
No, and nor should anyone else. Chain work means dismantling the front of the engine, usually dropping the sump, using locking tools to hold the timing, and keeping grit out of an open engine, all of which needs a lift and a clean floor. A driveway is the wrong place for it. If the car won't start, is in limp mode or has been sitting for months, we run our own recovery truck rather than booking in a third party, so ask us how far it's travelling before you plan around it.
Usually, when the repair is booked in with us. It's job dependent though, and not automatic on smaller jobs, so it's decided case by case and made clear to you before you commit to anything. We'd rather say that plainly than advertise a free diagnostic and quietly put it back in the labour.
Sometimes not, and we'll say so. Once the front of the engine is open we can see what the guides, tensioner and sprockets have done, and whether a stretched chain that's been left has taken valves or the head with it. If what's needed costs more than the car is worth, that's the verdict you'll get, along with what was found and why, before the job grows any further.
Phone: 01634 510 780
Email: bookings@medwayvehicleservices.
co.uk
Unit 3 Cliffe Yard, Anthonys Way, Medway City Estate, Rochester, Kent, ME2 4DY
