A metallic rattle for a few seconds on cold start, or a garage that’s said the words timing chain and quoted a figure that made you sit down. Either way, the first job isn’t the strip-down. It’s proving what’s actually in the engine and what’s happened to it. We confirm the fault first, itemise the quote afterwards, and nothing gets started without your approval.
Straight about the geography: the workshop is on the Medway City Estate in Rochester, not in Folkestone. Folkestone drivers either travel in, or the car comes to us on our own recovery truck if it won’t get here under its own power.
A chain runs in the engine oil and has no service interval, so it fails by wearing rather than by date. It stretches, and the tensioner and guides that hold it tight against the sprockets wear along with it. From cold the oil has drained back and the tensioner hasn’t been pressurised yet, so the slack is free to slap against the guides for a few seconds until oil pressure takes it up. That’s the noise most people ring about.
The trouble is that the same noise has several possible owners. A worn tensioner or a broken guide with a chain that’s still within tolerance. An oil level that’s dropped. On plenty of small Fords, Peugeots and Citroens, a belt running in oil shedding material rather than a chain at all. A strip-down quoted off a noise is a quote for work nobody has confirmed is needed.
Our diagnostic is £69. We read stored and pending fault codes through the OBD port, pull the freeze-frame data captured at the moment the fault set, and watch live data with the engine running to see whether the cam and crank really are out of step or whether something else is setting the code. On the engines where a belt in oil is the likelier culprit, that includes looking at the oil itself and at what may have reached the oil pickup.
The £69 is usually credited against the repair when the work is booked in with us. It’s job dependent and not automatic on smaller jobs, so it’s decided case by case and made clear before you commit to anything.
Three different things can drive the camshafts, and a search for timing chain work pulls in all of them.
A chain runs in the oil and is built to last the life of the engine. There’s no interval to work to. It fails by stretching, and by its tensioners and guides wearing until they can no longer hold it tight, so condition matters more than mileage.
A dry belt runs outside the oil behind a cover. It’s a service item with a mileage and a time limit, and you change it on schedule.
A wet belt is the one nobody expects. It’s a cambelt running in the engine oil, and rather than simply stretching it degrades with age and sheds material into the sump. That debris finds the oil pickup, blocks it, and the engine starves. Ford’s 1.0 EcoBoost and PSA’s 1.2 PureTech, in the 208, 2008, 308, C3 and C4, both run one. If that’s your engine, the rattle you’ve been quoted a chain job for may well be a belt, and catching it early is the difference between a belt kit and a new engine. We cover wet belt work in full elsewhere on the site rather than repeating it here.
A chain job is a serious strip-down, and on an older car the quote can outrun what the car is worth. Once we know what’s actually wrong you get a straight verdict either way, including being told the money would be better kept in your pocket. That isn’t a wasted visit. You’ll know what the car needs and what it would cost before you decide anything, which is more than a noise and a phone quote gives you.
We won’t publish one, because a single figure would be wrong for most of the cars it was quoted to. On some engines the chain sits at the front and can be reached with the engine still in the car. On others the timing drive is at the gearbox end, so getting to it means separating the gearbox or lifting the engine out. Same part, entirely different labour.
People ask what a chain costs at one of the big chains. We won’t guess at somebody else’s price, and a figure quoted for a different engine tells you nothing about yours until the fault has been confirmed. What you get here is an itemised quote after the diagnostic, priced to your engine, and nothing begins until you’ve agreed it.
The one figure we do publish is wet belt replacement from £599+VAT. That’s the belt-in-oil job, not a chain job. They’re two different pieces of work, and the diagnostic is what tells you which one you’re actually having.
Timing drive work is most of what comes through these doors: wet belts, chains, tensioners and guides, and engines opened up to find out why they wore out early rather than simply to fit new parts. The bulk of that is Ford, Peugeot and Citroen, which is a consequence of the wet belt design rather than a limit on what we take in. All makes and models, petrol, diesel, hybrid and electric, including older cars a main dealer would rather not have on the ramp.
You speak to the team directly rather than a call centre, and you get the explanation in plain words. The work is finished with a road test and a handover before the keys come back to you.
The work is done at the Medway City Estate workshop in Rochester, just off the A289. If the car still drives, it’s the M20 west from Folkestone to junction 7 at Maidstone, the A249 north over Detling Hill to Stockbury, then the M2 west and down onto the A289 at Strood. Around an hour on a clear run.
If it won’t start, it’s in limp mode, or it’s been sitting on the drive for months since somebody said the word chain, we bring it in on our own recovery truck. That’s our truck and our driver, not a recovery firm booked on your behalf. Folkestone is a fair distance out, so tell us where the car is and what it’s doing when you get in touch and we’ll agree the collection arrangement with you before anything is booked.
What we won’t do is come and do the job on your driveway. It means draining the oil, removing covers, often the gearbox or the engine, setting the timing to a specification and torquing fasteners to figures. That needs a ramp, tooling and a clean bay. Mobile work is advertised for this sort of job elsewhere; it isn’t a serious offer, and it’s why we own a truck.
There's no fixed price, because the labour depends entirely on how the timing drive is reached on your engine. You get an itemised quote after the £69 diagnostic, priced to your car, with parts and hours set out and nothing started until you approve it.
It comes down to the engine, not the badge. Ford's 1.0 EcoBoost and PSA's 1.2 PureTech run a belt in oil, so a 208, 2008, 308, C3, C4, Fiesta, Focus or Puma is worth checking before anyone quotes a chain. We confirm it from the engine and by looking at the oil.
No. Reading live data properly means running the engine, getting the car on a ramp and driving it, and a chain job itself needs tooling and a clean bay. That's the reason we run a recovery truck rather than a van.
Yes. We have our own recovery truck and regularly bring in cars that won't start, are stuck in limp mode or have been standing for months. Tell us where the car is and what it's doing and we'll sort the collection arrangement out with you first.
It depends on the engine. Some give a long grumbling warning, some give almost none, and if the noise comes with an oil light or a dropping oil level it shouldn't be driven at all. If you're unsure, leave it where it is and we'll fetch it.
Usually, yes, when the repair is booked in with us. It's job dependent and not automatic on smaller jobs, so it's decided case by case and we tell you where you stand before you commit to anything.
Phone: 01634 510 780
Email: bookings@medwayvehicleservices.
co.uk
Unit 3 Cliffe Yard, Anthonys Way, Medway City Estate, Rochester, Kent, ME2 4DY
