Van servicing and repair

Which vans do you work on?

Ford is the bulk of it: Transit, Transit Custom, Transit Connect and the Ranger pickup. We also take the Volkswagen Group vans, which are the same engines and the same equipment we use every day on the cars, and we will look at anything else.

A van is not a bigger car to work on, but it is not a different trade either. What changes is what the owner needs from the garage. A van off the road is a day not worked, so the useful thing is a straight answer early: what is wrong, what it needs, what it does not need, and when it can be back with you.

Does my Transit have a wet belt?

If it is a 2.0 EcoBlue diesel, yes, and that covers most of the modern range. This is the single most important thing for a Transit, Transit Custom, Transit Connect or Ranger owner to know about their engine.

A wet belt runs inside the engine, in the oil, rather than outside behind a dry cover. It is quieter and it lets the engine be packaged more tightly, and the problem is what happens as it ages: it sheds material into the oil, and that debris collects at the oil pickup. A restricted pickup starves the pump, and an oil pump that cannot deliver takes the rest of the engine with it. That is the failure mode. It is not really a belt failure at all, it is an oil supply failure caused by a belt.

One honest complication. Sources disagree about exactly which belt runs in the oil on this engine, and the layout appears to differ by model year and application: some describe a dry cam belt with a wet oil pump belt beneath it, others describe a wet belt doing cam timing and driving the pump. We establish which it is on your van rather than quoting you for the wrong one, and that is a real reason to have it looked at rather than diagnosed off a forum.

The full wet belt page covers the VW Group 1.5 TSI and the Ford EcoBoost petrols as well.

What does a failing wet belt sound like?

A rattle for the first few seconds after a cold start, which stops once oil pressure comes up. That is the one to act on, and it is the one most people wait out because it goes away. The others worth knowing:

• An oil pressure warning, at any point, on any journey
• Loss of power, hesitation under load, or a rough idle
• A misfire or an engine light that comes and goes
• Fine metallic or rubber debris found in the oil or on the sump plug at a service, which is the belt telling you directly
• The engine cutting out

And the one nobody wants to hear: it can also go with no warning at all. Several of the write-ups on this engine make that point and they are right to. The cold start rattle is the gift when you get it. Preventive replacement is the answer when you do not.

How often should the belt be changed?

This is where we will not give you a number off a web page, because the published figures do not agree with each other. Ford's own interval has been quoted at 150,000 miles or ten years and also, after a revision, at 100,000 miles or six years, and parts catalogues list lower figures again. Those are not small differences, and a van owner who picks the highest of them is taking a risk with an engine.

What we will do is check the figure that applies to your van, by registration, against its actual age, mileage and use, and tell you where you are. Use matters more here than on a car: short runs, stop-start town work, heavy loads and towing are all harder on the belt than motorway miles, and a van usually does the first kind.

The other thing worth saying, because it is cheap and it is repeatedly named as a factor in premature wear: use the right oil, to the right Ford specification, and change it on time. A wet belt lives in that oil. Oil that is past its life, or the wrong grade because it was convenient, is working against the one component you cannot inspect without taking the front of the engine apart.

Why does a BMW specialist work on vans?

Because the training is the transferable part. Main dealer method is diagnose before replacing, work to a documented procedure, prove the fix, and that does not change with the badge on the front. The diagnostic equipment is the same equipment, the torque figures come from the same kind of documented source, and a Ford EcoBlue is a modern common rail diesel like every other modern common rail diesel.

What the BMW and MINI side adds is the habit of working on engines where the expensive mistake is normal. The wet belt is exactly that kind of job: shortcuts are invisible until the engine is apart again.

What else do you do on vans?

Everything we do on the cars. In practice the list is:

• Servicing to the manufacturer schedule with the correct oil specification
• Diagnostics on proper equipment rather than a code reader
• Timing belts, wet belts and chains
• Clutches, brakes, suspension and cooling
• Air conditioning, on both refrigerants
• EGR, DPF and turbo faults diagnosed before anything is replaced

That last one is worth a sentence. A DPF or EGR fault on a van is usually a symptom, not a cause: the van does short cold runs, the filter never gets the chance to regenerate, and the light comes on. Replacing the part without changing what caused it buys you the same fault again. We will tell you which of the two you have.

If you run more than one van, talk to us.

Where are you, and how do I book?

We are at Unit B2, Fram Enterprise Centre, Heol-Y-Sarn, Edwards Business Parc, CF72 8QZ, a few minutes from Talbot Green and Llantrisant and a straightforward run from Cardiff, Pontypridd and Bridgend. Send us the registration and tell us what it is doing, and we will come back to you.