Land Rover Tdi cam belt failure

If you have any questions or have had a personal experience with this issue please let us know and we will be glad to post your response.

What is the problem ?

The timing belt on 300Tdi engines fitted to Defender and Discovery and Range Rover, suffer from premature wear due to miss alignment of some of the guiding pulleys. If serious this should manifest itself before the 60000km change interval.

What is the solution ?

Land Rover issued a technical bulletin No. 0008, on 25
March 98. This bulletin details the fitment of one of two possible rectification kits, depending on model numbers. Where the kits have been installed workshops are instructed to paint a 2cm
square yellow block on the upper left side of the timing cover.

Kit 1 (Part no. STC4095K) to be fitted to:
Discovery MA 081991 - TA 200000, MA 500000 - VA 542370, TA 700000 - VA 711273
Defender MA 939976 - VA 101256
Range Rover MA 647645 - MA 664120.

This kit contains; front cover, timing belt, crankshaft gear, tensioner, idler, FIE pump bracket, side cover, gaskets, dowels and fasteners.

Kit 2 (Part no. STC4096K) to be fitted to:
Disco VA 542371 - VA 558898, VA 711274 - WA 748935
Defender VA 101257 - VA 129096

This kit contains; timing belt, crankshaft gear, tensioner, idler, gaskets and fasteners. Also a crank shaft seal for Discovery VA 548520 - VA 558898, VA 716697 - WA 748935
Defender VA 107351 - VA 129096

What are the issues ?

From Roland Stone
e-mail

1. Phoned Danny at customer services Tel 3132000, on 8/3/2000. Explained my story. He called back to say I qualify for Kit No 1, and he called
Forsdicks at Alberante to say that I would be contacting them. So far so
good.
2. When I called there was sympathy, they promised to call back to confirm
just in case the Land Rover Regional Technical Manager did not agree. In
discussion we did agree that this was not a servicing issue but an engine
recall issue . So far so good.
3.On 10/3/2000, after I had followed up on e-mail, the answer came back to
say " I did discuss the replacement of the cam belt with the Regional
Technical Manager of Land Rover South Africa and due to the service history
(non Approved Dealer) Land Rover SA can not assist with this repair under
goodwill or warranty"
4. For the record this is not a 'Repair", it is in response to the news
shown on Landyonline, the Defender was bought from the said ' Dicks in
Westgate, was serviced via the ' Dicks for 3 years, then on time after that
by one of the listed repairer enthusiasts of LROC.The vehicle has done
150000 since 1995, was last serviced by the ' Dicks at Alberante one month
after the March 1998 technical bulletin no 8 , with no comment on the issue
at the time .
5. With that response it reminded me sharply of why I actually took it away
from the agents in the first place.(a) arrogance on their part (b) lack of
attention to detail, finding a finger tight loose sump plug , and loose
oil filters, loosened and leaking oil cooler hoses. I always had to spend the following weekend underneath to check on what had either not been put back properly or not cleaned up afterwards, or finding what else had been disturbed or made loose in the process and fix that.
6. I now have several options - persevere with Land Rover Customer Service,
or find another dealer, or ignore the whole thing on the grounds that the
Belt on my motor is running 80000kms between changes with no apparent bad
wearing. Any suggestions ?

From Alex van der Horst
ZA-LRO LIST

The story so far is as follows.
1. Phoned LRSA and spoke to a guy with the name of Andrew at customer
care 5 November 1999.
2. Explained my story to him. 1996 Tdi, guarantee expired 1997. 92K Kms
at present. Serviced since 1997 by the owner (Myself from 1998 even oil
change at 5000 km intervals)
3. I was pleasantly surprised that LRSA agreed to fix the Landy as it
is a factory recall (Confirmed with LR UK) LRSA will fit the relevant
kit and labour free of charge. When I quoted Technical Bulletin nr 0008
and Services Action Bulletin A/D482 it rang a lot of bells
4. I had to contact my dealer of choice to do the work.(My Father in
law services at ForsDICKs Westgate New 110 SW 1998)
5. Contacted Fanie at the ForsDICKs workshop.
6. He denies that LRSA can give the OK like that and needs to speak to
LRSA (Regional Technical Manager).
7. Played Ping Pong for 2 weeks (ForsDICKs VS LRSA) Fanie never returns
your call and is almost never available to talk.
8. I had to constantly get the two (LRSA ForsDICKs) to talk to each
other, I get the idea that they don't like each other.
8. On Tuesday 14 Nov99 the Regional Technical Manager Dave Botha meets
with the elusive Fanie and they both decide not to accommodate me as my
vehicle is out of warranty and was serviced by myself. (Refer to the big
wheel that turns See Point 2 and 3)
9. Phoned Andrew at LRSA and he is stunned as the OK was given by them
(Technical Department) irrespective of my servicing the vehicle myself.
10. I refuse to accept this and contacted Martin Wasson at Lakeview
this morning in person to ask him to contact LRSA and get me a definite
answer.
11. Martin phones me at 11 am today to tell me that LRSA will pay for
kit nr 1 and I have to pay for labour and the belt itself.
12. I book the 90 in for 2 December and will discuss the issue of the
labour charge with Andrew at LRSA after the car is fixed. (About R2000)

Renzo Blasa
ZA-LRO LIST

I am sending this to you all to assist as many fellow 300Tdi owners as
possible. The information has been gathered over the last few days
after hours on the phone to the BMW Call Centre (Sue O'Reilly and
Jolene Rich), Lakeview (Martin Wasson), Sandton (Andy Payne) and
Waterford (Andrew Fuller). Hopefully you will be better informed and
will not have to undergo the personal frustration and financial
expense I have had to endure.

THE TECHNICAL STUFF : the technical bulletin 0008 of 25.03.98 refers
to the premature wear of the timing belt due to misalignment of the
belt and pulleys, hence early failure. This bulletin contains the
range of affected vehicle chassis numbers or VIN's. These VIN's are
only for the UK-assembled vehicles because in SA engine numbers are
not allocated to specific chassis numbers. Therefore you have to look
at your engine number to see if yours is one with a possible timing
belt failure problem. A bulletin published recently contains such
engine numbers : all engines before 16L58408A or 21L87130A or
23L17910A require Kit 1 (i.e. problem hence full kit of goodies, cost
about R3500 for the kit), all engines after these only require Kit 2.
Because the belt failure should happen before 40000km, all Tdi's are
checked at every service for cambelt wear so that the owner can be
advised and Kit 1 can be fitted (the yellow blob of paint on the top
left timing cover shows this).

THE WARRANTY STUFF : some owners have had Kit 1 done for free, some
have paid for the belt, some have paid for labour, etc etc depending
on when and which dealer they went to. The official story is that the
dealer does the work and might do Kit 1 for free but later if the
warranty administrator refutes the full warranty claim then the dealer
has to pay for the difference. You already have your vehicle so you
can't be asked for the money afterwards. Whether you pay anything or
not is based on the km traveled. Because the belt failure should
happen before 40000km this would be repaired fully under warranty, or
if it failed before 60000km. However, if your engine gets to 60000km
without failure even though it is in the range of engines affected by
the misalignment problem, you will be charged for the cost of the
timing belt and the labour. The belt is about R550 and labour is about
R700.

I hope you find the above enlightening. After being told by 2
dealerships that Kit 1 would be fitted fully under warranty as my
engine was affected, I only got the above facts after the job was
done. My km reading was .......... 71000.