[ma701ss]

Hi all, not sure what the two pulleys are called in the photo shown (maybe it is pulleys!) but a few of the bolts have worked themselves loose and a tonne of oil has been leaking all over the engine and onto the drip tray below. Mechanic said he’s seen it only once before on the Ateca. Is it a common problem or is this a design flaw that Seat should reimburse me for? Garage is going to change the cam belt as it’s covered in oil, and fit new bolts and glue in place. The car is four years old and so out of warranty.

 

[cuboid]

That's not good ! That looks like the end cap on the camshaft assembly. If so there's an o-ring oil seal behind it (which obviously now isn't being compressed, hence the leak). Unless someone has been in there before, I suspect that those bolts were either not torqued up correctly at the engine plant or were missing an application of thread lock. What engine is this? 1.4TSi?

 

[ma701ss]

Hi it’s a 1.0 SE, I can’t think of a reason why anybody would’ve been in there before. The mechanic said he’d seen it once before and thinks the bolts have just worked themselves loose. It only seems to be to a couple of them though. He’s going to put new bolts in and secure them with Loctite. Last year the throttle body failed, about six months out of warranty, but presume they wouldn’t have gone near the cam belt when changing this (different garage).

Do you think I have any recourse through Seat for this despite it being outside of the warranty?

 

[rafletcher]

Unfortunately you'll never prove a case of poor workmanship (or more likely a problem with the automatic torque wrench used to tighten the bolts) in a case like this, so just be grateful nothing major resulted from it and chalk it up to the cost of ownership.

 

[ma701ss]

Forgot to mention that the same garage repairing it carried out a full service two months ago. The whole drip tray had collected oil, could have been a slow leak. Would there be any reason to check the cam belt and and end cap seal on a major service?

 

[rafletcher]

None whatsoever, other than a possible visual check of the belts.

 

[ma701ss]

Picked it up an hour ago, has cost me £910 for new cam belt, remove and replace exhaust variator (cap is from this I think), new bolts, 4 hours labour.

The oil light never came on once before the repair. The dipstick showed no oil but mechanic said it only shows the first litre or so, and will have about another four litres in the engine.

I just can’t see how two bolts came loose but the others appeared to be tight.

 

[ma701ss]

What’s the opinion on 4 hours labour for this repair, and should it have been necessary to remove and refit the exhaust variator? Presumably it was necessary to clean or due to access for the cam belt change?