Simple, fixed price Ford wet belt replacements

Yes. The wet belt is the engine's timing belt, which many people call the cambelt. It is called a wet belt because it runs inside the engine, in the engine oil, where an ordinary timing belt runs dry behind a cover.

So a wet belt replacement, a timing belt replacement and a cambelt change on a Ford 2.0 EcoBlue are the same job.

Originally Ford's official wet belt service interval for EcoBlue engines was 10 years or 150,000 miles, but due to premature failures, it has been revised to 100,000 miles or 6 years for models such as the Transit and Transit Custom.

In truth, it massively depends. We have seen complete wet-belt failures as low as 30,000 miles, and as high as 150,000. Largely, it depends on service intervals. We recommend belt replacements every 70,000 miles.

Service your oil and filter every 8,000 miles. This is the most critical thing you can do to prevent wetbelt failure.

In 1990, manufacturers recommended service intervals of 8,000. Modern Ford recommended service intervals are up to 24,600 miles. Oil hasn't become 3 times better. It is done to appeal to fleet buyers comparing whole life costs, and is borderline planned obsolescence. The quickest way to guarantee engine problems, is to trust these intervals. Ideally, oil and filter services every 8,000 miles prevent the oil congealing, blocking oil galleys and becoming acidic.

There are usually tell-tale signs of a belt replacement.

• Original Ford timing covers usually have a date stamped sticker from factory, so if this is present, it has likely never been opened.
• A visual check of the belt condition through the oil filler neck with an inspection camera gives some insight to the condition of the belt - you can usually tell if its nearly new, or very perished, though it can be very difficult to gauge anything in the middle.
• Timing cover sealant consistency. Factory fit timing covers have RTV sealant applied by robots, so it is extremely uniform and consistent. No matter how many we do, and how much experience we have - humans can never match the consistency when we replace the covers.

Often there is no prior warning that a belt is about to fail. It can happen at idle, or under full load. We've seen belt failures as low as 32,000 miles. In some cases, if you are lucky, just before a belt failure you will loose all brake boost assistance - meaning, your brake pedal will go rock hard when you press it. If you pull over immediately, and turn the engine off you can dodge the disaster by immediately replacing the timing, clearing oil strainers and replacing the vacuum pump.

A wetbelt snapping is a figure of speech. When a wet-belt fails, it does so by shredding the teeth off the inside of the belt, and the engine continues to run for a short while completely out of time.

The damage is usually pretty catastrophic. The extent of the damage depends on the speed (or load) the engine was under at the time it failed.

• Very low load failures typically sheer 6-10 teeth off the wetbelt, snapping rocker arms.
• Moderate load failures typically sheer 8-14 teeth off the wetbelt, snapping rocker arms and bending the camshafts.
• High load failures typically sheer 14+ teeth off the wetbelt, snapping rocker arms, bending the camshafts and bending intake and exhaust valves.

The wet belt design isn't great. Basic physics suggests oil will degrade rubber. Ford attempt to overcome this using a specific blend of rubber with oil resistant properties and coatings. Over time, the DPF and EGR contaminate the oil with soot, and becomes acidic, chipping away the protective coating of the wetbelt.

The other form of failure that is common, is bad oil becomes congealed sludge, and no longer effectively lubricates the vacuum pump. Either the oil no longer effectively lubricates, or blocks the oil galley. The vacuum pump then seizes, and freezes the camshaft that drives the pump in place. This rips teeth off the wetbelt, and causes a failure.

Wet belts have become a common feature of many newer engines, across many different manufacturers.

The vehicles we specialise in with wetbelts are the Ford Ecoblue 2.0L diesels, found in:

• EU6 (2016+) Ford Transit 2.0L Customs
• EU6 (2016+) Ford Transit 2.0L FWD
• EU6 (2016+) Ford Transit 2.0L RWD
• EU6 (2016+) Ford Transit 2.0L 4WD
• EU6 (2016+) Ford Ranger 2.0L 4WD

We find the Ford 2.0 EcoBlue wet belt engines to be a reliable engine overall. We'll argue that its a more reliable engine than it's predecessor, the 2.2 Duratorq engine. We typically find that they suffer very few problems, other than the obvious wetbelt. Turbos and injectors usually last 200,000 miles. Head-gasket and electrical failures are comparatively rare. In our experience, you are trading a lot of unknown issues for a single common failure point, the wetbelt, which keeps it easier to maintain.

Sometimes, if you are inside your manufacturers warranty period, and have up to date service history with main dealer. Outside of warranty period we have not heard of a successful attempt to have Ford contribute to the repair costs.