shrops_paul

Hi.

My car is at the garage having its cam belt service - 50,000 miles on a 2004 Forester 2.0 XT. (Turbo car).

The original price for the service & cam belt was a reasonable £320 but they have now called, having had the car all day, and said I need to have 3 of the 5 tensioners replacing - bottom left @ £41, Top right @ £82 and the hydraulic one at £112! bringing the service total to £526.

Now apart from being in a state of shock, I am concerned that the wool is being pulled. Anyone got any ideas on this and if the tensioners normaly need replacing after only 50,000 miles?

This is a not at a main dealer BTW.

scoobyboy

they have 1 tensioner and 3 idler gears, the main tensioner yes if it's leaking or if they squash it in a vice as it has to be compressed in the way it works i.e vertical but i've never heard of 3 idlers in one go having to be replaced it seems a bit odd.

sjwdavies

My 50k service needed the tensioner replacing, and a few of the cam pulleys too.

Total for my full service....... £860..... count yourself lucky so far pal!

dynamix

iTrader: (3)

I replaced my tensioner and an idler at less than 30k - they can go/get noisy at any time.

MrJim

Hi i had 50,000 service new tensioner radiatorflushed new antifreeze complete check on everything on 02 sti for under 500 quid by topmen Len and Mark at subaru4u

merlin24

iTrader: (1)

The bearings in the idlers do get noisy even at 50k,and you cannot take a chance with leaky tensioner - costly to replace them but you will have peace of mind that they wont fail on you.
Average cost for a engine out to replace bent valves/damaged pistons would be about £1500 !!

micabluematt

had my cambelt tensioners done recently along with a service at a cost of £620

shrops_paul

I know things can always be worse with a subaru! My impreza service was about £600 for a 30,000 mile one before I sold it. They are pricey to maintain unless you get dirty with the spanners yourself.

I would expect these things to last a little longer though. Slightly disapointing. Still, I should have known what to expect from previous subaru ownership. It always works out like this; Book it in, how much? £320. Sorted. Pick it up. Extra stuff we 'found while we were at it'. New Total £600. Always the same.

I'm still slightly dissapointed by my cheapskate aproach by not going to main dealer for an important service such as this. A 4 to 5 hour job is now at 4 days and I cant see me getting the car back today at this rate. How hard can it be to get the parts? Meanwhile I'm stuck with the saxo noah used on the ark. Sigh