OK, non believers !

Stock tensioner yes? i.e., not an upgraded Hill unit?
And what's the non-believer part? Everyone pretty much says it's the tensioners that's more important these days....and those parts should be upgraded for higher quality units.

 

That looks like terrible workmanship and a non Hill Tensioner(?). Someone should have been hearing something if it was that bad? But glad you caught it none-the-less


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My car has OEM tensioners. 6 years since replacement and all is well. Look pretty obvious that this car's last service was less than awesome. On my 95 the tensioner pivots where also frozen. Root cause not determined as my crystal ball cannot provide the data.

That should be the topic of the thread.

 

Each case is different.

If you want to paint every situation with the same brush, then we can use Ernie as an example and say that he drove 9.5 years of HO driving without a belt service

 

I'm going to add, Mitch: this thread is about to be the best Entertainment JohnK has had in a while. He must be asleep right now, look forward to the awakening.

 

Glad you caught it before badness ensued Mitchell! Any idea how many miles/years on the bearings? Most certainly they weren't changed with the belts 4 years ago. Given that the tensioner arms were frozen one would presume that those weren't touched 4 years ago either. As they say, . . . the Devil is in the details

 

Dose anyone know what service interval Hiils Engineering recommend for their tensioner bearings?

 

Yawn.

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If you open enough oysters you eventually find a pearl.

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid

In all seriousness, happy for the owner that this will be corrected. But it doesn't represent the typical situation.

 

But Mitch, bashing the mechanic is exactly what you are doing.

 

The issue is the tensioner not the belt which this post underscores. Additionally there is no assurance those tensioners are not 20 years old and were never even inspected given the work with the gaskets that was done I suspect they were never done.

We all know tensioners need to be upgraded period. THEN inspected at service. You did that and you caught an issue which was almost certainly a low ball job at an indie bmw service facility previously.

Good job catching it and posting it!

 

Ok, bearing age in unknown. What was the mileage at the last major and what is it now?

 

If this had a -major 4 years ago and now has frozen tensioners and disintegrating/original bearings I would say it didn't get a major, it got a belt swap.

 

To my knowledge they don't provide this data or any testing data to support the claim that these are better bearings. My gut tells me they are, but it would be nice to have data that supports it. Currently they are more cost effective than OEM so that's a benefit right off the bat

I would think after installing them, the next service they could be inspected. When bearings start to go, you can feel issues even when rotating by hand.

 

Ok. After asking Hills they say to follow the manufacturers recommended intervals for replacement.

 

I'll say it loud and clear. Best to leave things to those experienced.

Absolutely atrocious work on the car. Whoever did it don't quit your day job.

I say that in all kindness

xo

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Well, at least it looks like the valve covers were nicely painted. Surely a sign of experience.

 

Shocking. Standard practise to replace the tensioner when doing the belts.

Even more shocking is all that sealant. What muppet did that. Sure fire recipie to get done stuck in an oil way and blow your engine up!

Still you caught it and can now do it properly.

 

Well, NTN makes the bearings for Hill so you would think Hill would provide the recommendation. Prior to the "every 3 years on belts" Ferrari (I believe) specified 15K for "major" service intervals so I suppose we are to use that?

 

It doesn't look like that car has has been driven much since its last major. The valve cover paint looks new, and you still can read the name on the belts.
My hunch is the car sat a lot in the past 4 year, and I think that could have contributed to the bearing disintegrating.

 

My 348 has had only one belt service in 26 years, but then again it only has 1900 miles on it. I have it serviced every two years and quite honestly the technician doesn’t think it’s necessary to do the belt service. Even the first one 10 years ago, according to the technician, probably wasn’t absolutely necessary.