Tag Archives: aarons autos derby

Ride from Ashbourne to Pikehall

January ride out from Ashbourne towards Pikehall but due to one of the riders having a fall in a brook crossing and getting drenched we decided to call it a day.

Rider and bike were all ok (smokey exhaust for a few miles) but we still had to make fun of him falling in though – watch the video till the end to see what I mean.

Another EcoBoost having its wet belt replaced just in time!

The Ford 1.0 EcoBoost engine fitted to the Fiesta, Focus, B Max and some Ford Connect vans is ran by a wet belt (runs inside the engine) and Ford recommend it should be replaced at 150,000 miles or 10 years.

This Fiesta was 8 years old and had only done 80,000 miles and you can see by the pictures the condition of the belt and the debris inside the oil pump pick up caused by the failing belt.

Wetbelt cracked and ready to fail

Replacing the wetbelt and oil pump belt is a time consuming job, you have to remove about 90% of the engines ancillaries to be able to access the wet belt and to be able to fit the timing kit which ensures the new belt goes on in exactly the right place.

Wetbelt strip down process

  • Remove coil packs, fuel rail and rocker cover
  • Remove AC compressor, AC pipes, alternator and catalytic converter
  • Drain engine oil, drain coolant, remove drive shaft, starter motor and sump
  • Remove water pump and aux belt tensioner
  • Rotate engine to TDC and fit crank timing tools and flywheel locking tool
  • Fit camshaft timing tools
  • Remove crank pulley using a Torque Multiplier
  • Remove front engine cover
  • Remove wetbelt, oil pump belt and oil pump and inspect
Torque Multiplier

Normally we can just clean out the oil pump pick up but in this case we decided it would be a good idea to replace the oil pump whilst it was stripped down because it was so bad.

Belt debris inside oil pump pick up

There are several other seals and washers we replace when rebuilding the engine such as the block to front cover seal behind the water pump and the crank bolt friction washer (Ford advise fitting this due to early problems of crank slip).

New belt kit and oil pump fitted

Wetbelts are becoming a big problem in all makes and models of vehicles and we advise you get yours replaced well before the recommended interval to reduce the chance of failure.

Aarons Autos car service garage.

Your friendly car garage in Derby

Give us a call at Aarons Autos for more info.

Ford Transit Custom with a high clutch pedal

Our customer brought his Ford Transit Custom to us with the clutch pedal a lot higher than it should be but the biting point was still ok?

A lot of cars and vans have a ‘stop’ for the clutch pedal in the form of a bracket or a rubber but in the case of the Transit Custom it is built into the Clutch Master Cylinder itself.

Once we had removed the Master Cylinder we could see that the operating arm inside had broken allowing the return spring to make the pedal sit high.

When we replaced the clutch master cylinder and bled the hydraulic system we could see the pedal was now sitting in its correct position and felt a lot more natural to drive.

Aarons Autos car service garage.

Your friendly car garage in Derby

Give us a call at Aarons Autos for more info.

2018 Ford Transit Wet Belt Failure

This Ford Transit was recovered into us after breaking down on the M5, the customer said he suddenly lost all power and pulled into a laybuy.

After a quick investigation it was very apparent that the van had no compression and we suspected the wet belt had failed causing the crank shaft to keep turning without the cam shafts which has caused internal damage.

We removed the front end of the van including head lamps, radiator and bumper to allow easy access to the wet belt cover.

Once we removed the cover we could see that the wet belt had indeed failed, several teeth were missing from the belt which had allowed the crank and cam shafts to turn separately and caused piston and valve contact.

Check your timing belt history! We recommend 80,000 miles or 8 years.

Teeth missing from wet belt

With a quick inspection of the damaged parts we decided it would be cheaper for the customer to fit a reconditioned engine than for us to repair his damaged engine.

Ford are aware of the premature failure of their Wet Belts which on this model were due at 150,000 miles or 10 years but as far as we are aware they are offering no help if the vehicle is out of warranty.

When the new engine arrived we started swapping all auxiliary parts from the old engine to the new engine carefully inspecting for damage or wear in the process, all gaskets and seals were replaced at the same time.

Reconditioned engine from Ford

With the engine and gearbox built up it was time to refit them into the van and get to a stage where we can run the engine and test for any leaks or blows before refitting the front end.

Starting an engine after such a big job is always an intense feeling no matter how confident you are, but after checking and double checking we were happy with our work and we turned the key…….. and voila, life.

We left the engine running for some time to allow the oil and coolant to get up to temperature and so we could check for any problems.

All good so time to refit the front end and road test, after the road test we recheck all levels and hand back to the customer.

Aarons Autos car service garage.

Your friendly car garage in Derby

Give us a call at Aarons Autos for more info.

Ford Transit 2.0 EcoBlue TDCI – High Crankcase Pressure

This Ford Transit 2.0 EcoBlue TDCI came into us with a complaint of excessive oil leaks, high crankcase pressure and intermittent white smoking.

When you removed the oil filler cap there was an excessive amount of pressure and white smoke coming from inside the rocker cover and also from the breather pipe going to the inlet pipe.

On this Puma engine to be able to remove the rocker cover you must first remove the diesel injectors and when we did the problem became apparent.

what had been happening was that the injector to cylinder head copper sealing washers had failed and was allowing the combustion gases to enter the engine which was causing the high crankcase pressure.

Injector blowing past copper sealing washer

The high crankcase pressure is also what we believe was causing all the oil leaks on the engine, the engine was trying to find the easiest way to relieve the pressure, either a weak seal or weak gasket would allow the engine to release pressure and oil hence ‘oil leak’

How to resolve the issue.

With the injectors removed we removed the old copper seals and cleaned the body of the injectors using a wire wheel, making sure not to touch the tip of the injector as modern injector nozzle holes are so fine any attempt to clean them normally causes damage.

Using an injector seat cutting tool we cleaned the sealing base of the injector and also cleaned the injector holes in the cylinder head making sure to blow out any excess aluminium that the cutting tool may have left in the injector holes.

Injector seat cutting tool

Using a new rocker cover gasket and injector sealing washers (copper) we refitted the injectors making sure to also replace the injector clamp bolts as they are a one time use stretch bolt that require torquing to a specific setting when fitted.

Once rebuilt we started the engine and gave it a few minutes to settle due to having the injectors removed, and instantly we could see by removing the oil filler cap that there was now very little crankcase pressure and no sign of white smoke.

After a long road test the vehicle was returned to the garage to have a final check over for any signs of leaks and for an oil and filter change as the oil would have been contaminated with diesel and carbon deposits from the injectors which had been blowing past and then returned to its owner.

Aarons Autos car service garage.

Your friendly car garage in Derby

Give us a call at Aarons Autos for more info.

Peugeot Boxer Timing Chain Noise

This Peugeot Boxer had a serious engine noise and an engine management light on when it came to us for Service.

Firstly we had to diagnose whether it was from the engine internals or auxiliary items such as air con compressor water pump etc.

Once we had determined it was indeed from the engine we needed to strip down to find out what was causing the noise

After removing the timing chain cover it became pretty obvious what was causing the noise, the chain had stretched so much that the adjuster was fully out and the chain was still loose.

Peugeot Boxer Timing Chain Stretched

After removing the chain we compared it to the new chain and it was a full link longer, the teeth on the crank gear had become rounded and all the chain guides were starting to break apart (debris in the sump).

When we fitted the timing tool to the engine prior to removing the chain we could see that the stretched chain had allowed the timing of the engine to be out by a full tooth.

With the new timing chain kit fitted to the engine and all debris removed we treated the engine to a new oil filter and some fresh oil and gave the key a turn.

The difference was night and day, the engine ran smooth with no worrying clattering and rattling just ticking over like it should.

A quick code scan with our diagnostic machine tells us that all the fault codes relating to the stretched timing chain have gone.

Time for a good road test, final check and hand back to the customer.

Aarons Autos car service garage.

Your friendly car garage in Derby

Give us a call at Aarons Autos for more info.

2017 Audi TT 1.8 TFSI With Fault Code P00b7 – Fixed.

This Audi TT was brought into the Garage with its Engine Management Light (EML) on, after carrying a Diagnostic Code Read we could see numerous codes in its ecu the main one for us was P00b7 which related to poor coolant flow!

When checking the live data we could see that the engine coolant temperature sensor was reading at over 100 degrees whilst the radiator temperature sensor was at a stable 40/45 degrees even after a road test.

The cooling system on this car is controlled by an electronic thermostat which is built into the back of the water pump housing located under the inlet manifold.

To access the water pump housing we removed the inlet manifold for ease, once the manifold was off we removed the water pump and housing for inspection.

inlet manifold and water pump removed

When we removed the cover off the electronic thermostat we could see that the gear on the operating motor had broken off meaning that it couldn’t open the thermostat.

operating gear missing from motor

The Fix

Using genuine Audi parts we replaced the water pump and water pump housing along with its drive belt then rebuilt the engine so that we could retest for operation.

After running the engine up to temperature we rechecked our live data, the engine temperature sensor was now reaching 98 degrees and then dropping as the thermostat opened and we could see the radiator temperature increase too.

Once the car had been road tested and rechecked for leaks it was handed back to its owner.

Aarons Autos car service garage.

Your friendly car garage in Derby

Give us a call at Aarons Autos for more info.

Nissan Pulsar Timing Chain Faults Found.

We have seen quite a lot of Timing Chain faults recently across different manufacturers from Nissan and Renault to Audi and Volkswagen.

The faults range from chains stretching and causing the Engine Management Light (EML) to come on to chains slipping and causing poor running and in some cases non start.

There is a lot of speculation as to why the chains in modern cars don’t seem to last as long as their predecessors such as poor oil quality, poor design, poor materials etc…..

What we can say is this problem is becoming more and more common and it is something you cannot ignore, if your engine starts to get a rattle that was not there before or your EML comes on and you have codes for ‘Incoherence between Cam and Crank Sensors’ make sure to get it into the garage to be checked out before it does any serious damage.

Here we have a picture of the timing chain cover from a 2016 Nissan Pulsar that had recently started to rattle, as you can see the chain was so loose it was starting to catch the top of the chain cover and wear it away.

Nissan Pulsar worn timing chain cover.
Aarons Autos car service garage.

Your friendly car garage in Derby

Give us a call at Aarons Autos for more info.

Cancelled Bookings Cost Time and Money!

Over the last couple of years we have seen a large increase in jobs being cancelled last minute by customers and also not turning up for their appointment on the day.

This in turn has a major affect on the day to day running of our workshop as we allocate jobs to our technicians based on Labour times to maximize the efficiency of our workshop.

When a Labour intensive job doesn’t show up for example a Clutch or a Cambelt the technician that was booked to carry out that job has no work and not only is that a cost to the workshop but it also affects other customers that are waiting to book in for work as they could have used that slot.

Going forward we have made the decision to take a £50 deposit for all jobs that are expected to take over two hours which will only be refundable if the job is cancelled at least 48 hours before its booking slot.

This will allow us to book in other customers who are waiting for our Services.

We understand sometimes it is out of your control and you have to cancel but we hope you understand our position, this is a hard time for all small business’s.

Aarons Autos car service garage.

Your friendly car garage in Derby

Give us a call at Aarons Autos for more info.