Oil Change with a cambelt change, necessary?

[daelo]

Hello experts !

Had an Auxillary belt change 4 months ago with the intention of not keeping the car long enough to warrant Cambelt change, aux was slipping a bit when cold and damp (whiney noise) on startup so had it changed on precaution (135k) miles.

Did oil change 2 weeks ago. Circumstances have changed and I want to do the dephaser as it has a rattle when cold for about 10 minutes between 2700rpm and 3000rpm. At the same time going to do the Cambelt and water pump, can't seem to want to get rid of the 182 , it's like a part of me now i'm nearly at 4 years of ownership!

Question is, does an oil change need to be done when replacing the cambelt, does a new auxillary belt and tensioners also need to be fitted when they are removed to get to waterpump?

If you could answer these two questions , i would be most grateful, I'm doing my part to keep at 138,000 mile 182 on the road !

Woodford or fish, or two techs or ren70aks will be my choice of specialists, along with getting the core parts from Adam (most helpful) of Wolverhampton Renault.

Excuse if this question has been asked before, but I couldn't find a categorical answer from the thread titles, so hopefully this one will remain in the knowledge base and help others.

 

[Mr R.]

A specialist will not fit supply part's as they can not guarantee them.

If you are taking it to a specialist then they will know what needs to be replaced.

 

[JAMason]

A specialist will not fit supply part's as they can not guarantee them.

If you are taking it to a specialist then they will know what needs to be replaced.

Some do! They just do it with out a guarantee. Birchdown for example will fit supplied parts but not offer a guarantee on them, they just guarantee their work... and that would be impossible to prove haha. :/

Jack

 

[daelo]

Is it worth doing a compression test before hand, to see if everything is in order before committing shy of £700 for a cambelt change?

 

[JAMason]

Is it worth doing a compression test before hand, to see if everything is in order before committing shy of £700 for a cambelt change?

£700...makes me feel sick when I think about it considering my car was only £1600!! haha. It wouldn't do any harm doing a test I guess, if the results come back and show signs of head gasket you might as well cut your losses. Add the head gasket in and you will be looking at £800-900 worth of work with Labour rates these days!

 

[daelo]

Does anyone have any idea on the original question, about the oil change and having to replace the Aux Belt + tensioners if they are removed? (even when having just been replaced?)

 

[Budgie]

Does anyone have any idea on the original question, about the oil change and having to replace the Aux Belt + tensioners if they are removed? (even when having just been replaced?)

It is possible to re-use both, yeah,

Oil, I wouldn't see a huge problem in re-using, but for the cost of it I'd replace.

Lots of people are funny about te-tensioning a belt too, especially as if it snaps, it'll likely take the cambelt with it. If it were me, I'd not bother swapping the oil filter, would swap the oil for the sake of £20 and I'd buy a new belt. Wouldn't swap the tensioner though.

On my own car obvs. Someone else's car, I would always recommend to replace all, then if there's a problem it's not my fault. Lol

 

[Steven103]

Perhaps more intriguingly your symptoms do not sound anything like a dephaser. 2700-3000rpm is typically catalyst-manifold gasket. £17 part. OEM only.

Dephaser rattle is loudest at idle and the more you rev the engine the more the noise goes away. By 3000 rpm you almost definitely can't hear it above the engine noise from within the car. It is also worse when WARM as the oil is thinner.

STILL DO THE BELTS & DEPHASER IF IT'S DUE ON AGE OR MILEAGE. "5 years or 72k miles whichever comes first" means whichever comes first, not whichever suits your wallet the best in the short term.

 

[daelo]

Good advice above, I think I would re-use the oil filter only and tensioners, get new aux belts and oil put in.

It's due its 10 yearly cambelt service (dependant on whether the compressions borked). The noise emminates definitely from the cam area, not from the join between the catalyst and manifold exhaust joints so far as I can tell, I can definitely hear the rackety rack of the dephaser up until about 30mph, after that the wind and other noises drown it out. The noise of the 2700-3000rpm rattle is like a bolt in a bean can that is shock side to side, really fast , really metallic.

I used to have a whine around 2500rpm which turned out to be a loose alternator bracket resonating , really really annoying whine, are they're any other brackets that might be cuprits nearby? It's odd it dissapears when the engine oils up to temperate. Could it be the dephaser mechanism is getting hot which is causing it to expand, which then eliminates the noise as the movement has been removed?

I'll try and get a video of the sound later on some quite roads out of work.

 

[daelo]

All booked in with Mark Fish, he is quite confidence inspiring with his knowledge of the cars and the engines themselves. Good luck to me!

 

[Diagro]

It's due its 10 yearly cambelt service (dependant on whether the compressions borked). T

???
is it not 5 years / 72K miles for Cambelt + Dephaser and 3 years / 36k for Aux belt???

 

[Martin.]

All booked in with Mark Fish, he is quite confidence inspiring with his knowledge of the cars and the engines themselves. Good luck to me!

You're in great hands.

 

[Steven103]

???
is it not every 5 years / 72K miles whichever comes first for Cambelt + Dephaser and every 3 years / 36k whichever comes first for Aux belt???

EFA.

I'm sure you don't need me to point out that 2 x 5 = 10. Every Clio RS upto an 04 plate should have had it's belts changed twice now.

I suspect this is what Daelo was getting at, though his grammar was dangerously close to implying you need 10 belt changes per year! :rasp:



Dephaser still isn't an official service item AFAWK (as far as we know ) it's just the same as every mechanical component with a finite lifespan - turns out enough of them warrant replacement after 5+ years to realise it's probably a good idea to change it with the cambelt kit.

 

[daelo]

Haha yes my grammar may have eluded my intentions there.

Certainly is on the 10 year mark now, if it was a real heap of a car, would still be tempted to see how long it last before it blows up naturally, purely out of interest! Has anyone done this and found they got 80 - 90 k or even more out of a cambelt?

 

[Amos91]

Not sure why you would change the belts, put new oil in but not replace a cheap oil filter.

 

[daelo]

Mark informed me that an oil change was not a necessity with changing the cambelt ( as i thought you had to drain the engine!!) , as I thought it was. I did an oil change two weeks ago so no need apparently?