Quote:
Originally Posted by Reebs
I'm a V6 man as many will know, so have little experience of the diesel chain driven M47R engines.
My question is do the chain driven units need no maintenance or changing whatsoever in the life of the car?
I ask because the wife has just bought a 2012 Audi A1 1.4 Petrol TFSI which has a chain driven cam rather than the later model belt driven one. Looking on the Audi forums and honest John, it suggests that the chain drive can be troublesome and become loose or snap if not regularly checked and that the engine needs fresh oil every 12 months if its chain driven.
Are the Rover 75 CDTi's the same here then or are they much lower maintenance?
I guess from reading the web, you only hear of the bad cases, and that the vast majority of chain driven cars have no issues? 
Do our diesel 75s and ZTs ever need their chains replacing / checking / adjusting? Any experience on this would be great  |
Various engines have problems with timing chains Paul - I had a Triumph Stag back in the day and when I checked the tensioner it was one notch away from falling out altogether, so lucky I got to it just in time. More recently BMW had many failures of the timing chains with the earlier 1 Series diesels.
Bit like head gaskets; on some cars they last the lifetime of the engine and on others they don't.
Luckily for us owners, the M47R engines have timing chains that appear to last the lifetime of the engine. I stripped one down that had done 188k miles and there wasn't any appreciable wear on any component.
They need regular servicing of course. Much as I usually change oil and filters earlier than recommended, with my car, as it was originally a company car and was serviced according to the manufacturer's schedule, I have carried on changing oil and filter every 15k miles.
To date, nothing lubricated by the oil has ever been replaced and the engine runs fine and sounds fine too. The only clue to the high mileage is that the oil light takes a tad longer to go out from a cold start than it did when new. Not bad for an engine that has covered over 400k miles.
