[agumonkey]

Did you know before hand this would be the case ? cause even when choosing a model that was deemed well made and long-lasting, we hit an unfortunate engine belt timing failure (100k cars were concerned, we got one..) and had to replace the whole thing.

[lukevp]

Yes, if you get a Toyota and maintain it, it would be expected to make it past 200k miles. They are by far the most reliable cars. Timing belt failures are only catastrophic for interference engines, and most cars use timing chains now, which have a much lower failure rate.

[ErroneousBosh]

I wonder if you live in a very warm dry part of the world where it doesn't rain and they don't salt the road?

In $job-2 we had a small fleet of Toyota pickups that were leased brand new, returned to the leasing company at three years old just before they were due their first MOT. They were picked up from our workshop, and driven straight to the scrapyard and crushed. There wasn't a hope in hell of them passing even their first MOT.

[Melatonic]

How many times did you replace the timing belt (and probably water pump) before the failure ? Curious what vehicle this is

[agumonkey]

It was a nissan micra k12, and I used the wrong term, it's not a belt it's a timing chain (metallic) allegedly designed for longer longevity, but there was an industry issue (bad alloy or something) that made them stretch and lose sync with the timing chain counter circuit. The ECU would trip and rapidly the engine would just stop (quite dangerous depending on which road your on). Car mechanics had to swap the whole engine.. we sold it not long after that.

[ErroneousBosh]

Many years ago (like 30) an old neighbour of mine gave me his Nissan Micra K10 because the timing belt had snapped. It had been his first car that he'd bought, and he couldn't bring himself to scrap it. I bought him a pint, because we were in the local pub, and fair exchange is no robbery.

So, we towed it up to my house with my mate's Suzuki Jeep, and I set about removing the head. Sure enough, belt snapped, wrapped round the cam pulley, all eight valves bent.

It turns out, my mum's neighbour used to use K10s as her driving school cars, and when one had been written off in an accident her husband had pulled the engine. But, now he wanted his shed cleared to get his boat in, and would I mind giving him a hand? Yes of course I'd give him a hand, and he gave me the engine.

So 25 quid or so of my hard-earned dole money and I bought a Haynes manual for the Micra (which I still have, the manual not the car), a head gasket set, a timing belt set, and six tins of beer, and set about reassembling the engine with the good head off the engine from the shed. It took a few hours of a nice Sunday afternoon and by early evening it was back together and would start and run, come up to temperature, no bubbles in the coolant, no funny noises, smooth as silk.

I put another 85,000 miles on that in the next four years before it eventually got to the point where it was just too rotten to consider welding any more.

I kind of wish I'd just chucked it into a nice dry shed and left it until I could properly strip the shell and weld it up. It would be tax and MOT exempt by now, a historic vehicle! Can you imagine, a historic D-reg Micra?