[Always shining]

Word of warning to anyone with a Transit Custom. I’m not sure which years it covers but there is a fault with the wet belt in them. There is a recall but a lot of people haven’t been contacted yet.
Mine is a 2017 with the adblue engine. 100,000 miles.
No recall listed on the gov mot checker website and I’ve had no letter.
The other day I was driving and went to hit the brake and it was rock solid. Only managed to stop after stamping on it and using the handbrake. Luckily I wasn’t going too fast! Was pretty hairy! I Was behind a truck as well!
Van went in garage and it was the vacuum pump that had failed. Subsequently turns out it’s the wet belt disintegrating and causing all kinds of issues. It was my garage that contacted Ford and confirmed all this.
I now have to send the van 40 miles away to my nearest Ford dealership who have confirmed that it is in fact on a recall.
As it stands they are going to put a new engine in it for free.
My worry is that once they have hold of it they will try any trick to wiggle out of it.
Time will tell!
Could be weeks off the road so I have to source another van. Already been off for a few days so I’m getting well behind. Really not good all round.
So if you own a Transit Custom get it checked out by contacting a Ford dealership asap and they will tell you if it’s on a recall.
Fingers crossed none of you are affected.

[The Jester of Wibbly]

At least you have the backing and the witness of you're own garage.  Just keep to communication via emails so you have evidence avoiding phone calls other than follow up calls to your email.

I'm fairly sure you're entitled to a courtesy van as it's a Ford issue.    They will usually prioritise repairs when they have a courtesy vehicle on the road

Good luck with it chap.

[Spruce]

Word of warning to anyone with a Transit Custom. I’m not sure which years it covers but there is a fault with the wet belt in them. There is a recall but a lot of people haven’t been contacted yet.
Mine is a 2017 with the adblue engine. 100,000 miles.
No recall listed on the gov mot checker website and I’ve had no letter.
The other day I was driving and went to hit the brake and it was rock solid. Only managed to stop after stamping on it and using the handbrake. Luckily I wasn’t going too fast! Was pretty hairy! I Was behind a truck as well!
Van went in garage and it was the vacuum pump that had failed. Subsequently turns out it’s the wet belt disintegrating and causing all kinds of issues. It was my garage that contacted Ford and confirmed all this.
I now have to send the van 40 miles away to my nearest Ford dealership who have confirmed that it is in fact on a recall.
As it stands they are going to put a new engine in it for free.
My worry is that once they have hold of it they will try any trick to wiggle out of it.
Time will tell!
Could be weeks off the road so I have to source another van. Already been off for a few days so I’m getting well behind. Really not good all round.
So if you own a Transit Custom get it checked out by contacting a Ford dealership asap and they will tell you if it’s on a recall.
Fingers crossed none of you are affected.

Oh dear! How are you going to get it to a Ford garage 40 miles away with a failed vacuum pump?

Are Ford replacing all engines with wet belt failure? At 100,000 miles, you could well have to prepare for a fight. We will pay for parts, but you pay for labour could be their last solution. And the parts they supply will not have a warranty.

I hope it works out well for you.

[Always shining]

Thanks for the replies. Low loader booked. £120 all in so happy with that.
I’m going to ring about the courtesy vehicle as that hadn’t crossed my mind to be honest.
With regards to are they replacing all wet belts you have to check with Ford to see if you are on a recall as I couldn’t find the information anywhere else. It was only the fact that my garage was on to it that I found out.

[KS Cleaning]

You can also do  MOT check to see if there is a recall for your van.

[zesty]

Shared a reply on this recently, exact same thing happened to our car.

Wet belts are crap.

All the eco boost engines have the same issue, as well as the PSA 1.2 pure tech engines.

Wet belts are the most ridiculous design.

[EandM]

It's been over a decade of oil pump failures on the 2.2 & 3.2.
Still unresolved and they even modified the pump without admitting there was anything wrong with it!

No faith in them, sorry.

[dd]

You can also do  MOT check to see if there is a recall for your van.

He said he did that in original post.

[Always shining]

Phoned the Ford garage to ask about a courtesy van. They have none in at the moment!!
They did say that once they have ‘investigated’ they will inform Ford and then Ford will provide a courtesy vehicle usually through Enterprise until mines fixed. Assuming that they are admitting liability and going to repair it.
We will see!!!

[Smudger]

Phoned the Ford garage to ask about a courtesy van. They have none in at the moment!!
They did say that once they have ‘investigated’ they will inform Ford and then Ford will provide a courtesy vehicle usually through Enterprise until mines fixed. Assuming that they are admitting liability and going to repair it.
We will see!!!

And there lies the issue - I feel a slopey shoulders moment coming like - you didn't get a service done bang on time or used the wrong garage - filled up with the wrong sort of diesel etc..

Had the same with Vauxhall and the injector farse - if I had the Renault traffic version I would have had them changed FOC - but Vauxhall refused to change them as I wasn't the original owner (even though it was inside the mileage/time span and all servicing was done)

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you = good luck

Darran

[zesty]

Suprisingly Darran,

When our Peugeot went in for the same issue, booster pump failure, Peugeot didn’t bat an eyelid at the fact we had used a different garage for previous services…

I thought they would, but no, they did they whole job under recall - we hadn’t  received a recall letter by that time either.

[Arnold Palmer]

Wet belts are a joke. First time I saw one was on a transit connect. What a stupid idea.

[EandM]

Wet belts are a joke. First time I saw one was on a transit connect. What a stupid idea.

All part of chasing emissions.

They do help but should probably be changed about every 30k.

[Splash & dash]

The rules regarding servicing alters many years ago you don’t have to take a vehicle to the main dealers for services provided you can prove it’s been serviced it’s not an issue , but any recall will have to be done by a main dealer

[NWH]

 Yeah as long as the garage you use is Vat Registered it allowed.

[zesty]

Wet belts are a joke. First time I saw one was on a transit connect. What a stupid idea.

All part of chasing emissions.

They do help but should probably be changed about every 30k.

For a net 1% efficiency gain, it’s a massive joke like all the green nonsense.

[EandM]

Wet belts are a joke. First time I saw one was on a transit connect. What a stupid idea.

All part of chasing emissions.

They do help but should probably be changed about every 30k.

For a net 1% efficiency gain, it’s a massive joke like all the green nonsense.

Yes, it's absolutely daft.

The variable rate/vane oil pumps save about 1 bhp which helps its carbon footprint.

But I wonder how many million times it's outweighed by the resources necessary to rebuild tens of thousands of engines?


Also, spotted this on a frequently visited forum:

" We had five wet belt failures within the Ford warranty period which was 100,000 miles.

Serviced at Ford promptly when the message appeared, around 30.000m intervals!

We wanted to have more frequent oil changes but were told firmly that it would invalidate the warranty!

All failure occurred between 85 and 98K miles, unfortunately the replacement engines were only warranted until the vehicles had reached 100K miles.

Wet belts were due at 140K miles.

After kicking up a fuss because we lost the use of the vehicle for weeks whilst new engines were sourced and fitted, Ford HQ decided to switch to condition based service intervals.

Oil changes come up now between 5 and 7K miles and reliability improved.

However recently we have been plagued with AdBlue and DPF problems,, including the one previously mentioned that won!t come out of regen.

Currently have four out of eight vehicles out of action. "

[Smudger]

No one measures that side of it. hence a lot of this global warming is a waste of time

Darran

[Jonny 87]

Wet belts are a joke. First time I saw one was on a transit connect. What a stupid idea.

All part of chasing emissions.

They do help but should probably be changed about every 30k.

For a net 1% efficiency gain, it’s a massive joke like all the green nonsense.

Yes, it's absolutely daft.

The variable rate/vane oil pumps save about 1 bhp which helps its carbon footprint.

But I wonder how many million times it's outweighed by the resources necessary to rebuild tens of thousands of engines?


Also, spotted this on a frequently visited forum:

" We had five wet belt failures within the Ford warranty period which was 100,000 miles.

Serviced at Ford promptly when the message appeared, around 30.000m intervals!

We wanted to have more frequent oil changes but were told firmly that it would invalidate the warranty!

All failure occurred between 85 and 98K miles, unfortunately the replacement engines were only warranted until the vehicles had reached 100K miles.

Wet belts were due at 140K miles.

After kicking up a fuss because we lost the use of the vehicle for weeks whilst new engines were sourced and fitted, Ford HQ decided to switch to condition based service intervals.

Oil changes come up now between 5 and 7K miles and reliability improved.

However recently we have been plagued with AdBlue and DPF problems,, including the one previously mentioned that won!t come out of regen.

Currently have four out of eight vehicles out of action. "

I have never heard before that servicing early invalidates warranty.

Is that real? 

I’ve got a 22 plate custom and I’ve just serviced it at 10,000 miles with my local garage. (Vat registered and using the Ford parts service pack).

No way would I wait 2 years or 25,000 miles for a service.

It’s the service intervals that cause the wet belt problem in many garages opinion.

[CleanClear]

https://www.arval.nl/sites/default/files/119/2022/07/20B44_Ford.pdf

It affects more vehicles than the recall suggests. If you pop "ford transit wet belt" into the search on Facebook or twitter loads come up, and i mean loads.

My mate has just had a third engine fitted in his 68 plate, total vehicle mileage is less than 50,000 .

As far as i understand there is two separate problems, in one scenario bits of the belt shred off and block up the oil ways leading to the vaccum pump going. In other cases the belt just snaps due to "delamination" .