Bongo Fury

One for the Bongo Egg Heads...
Im about to have my 3rd cam belt change in the 8 yrs that Ive owned my 2.5 Diesel Bongo (1996). However the local garage that Ive not used before have quoted nearly £340 saying that the water pump should be replaced at same time as they've had problems before with leaks after cam belt changes on Bongos.. I called the bods who use to do my services and live Bongos. they say the cam belt doesn't power the coolant pump and its not an issue unless theres something obviously wrong. The garage who quoted did it over the phone and have not seen the Bongo in the flesh..There is no known issues with the pump.......Can anyone give me a difinitive answer on whether the cam belt drives the coolant pump or not.. and is this garage talking out their bottom.... Many thanks in advance..

Cambelt does not drive the water pump. It's driven by twin belts that go round crankshaft pulley and the alternator. There are plenty of vehicles such as our Mk4 Golf GTi where to change the water pump you have to remove the cambelt which is why it's often recommended to do all work at the same time. You don't have to change the water pump on the Bongo if it's in good order but it won't do any harm to replace it if it's had a lot of use or never been changed. A typical cost for cambelt replacement seems to be around the £200 mark.

If it were me, I'd take it to a garage that really knows their Bongos and will probably charge you a bit less money.

It sounds as though your local may not be up to speed with the bongo cooling system....unless you are 100% certain they know how to bleed the cooling system after they do any work involving the system I would keep well clear of them......download the bleeding instructions and have a look at the vid,s on YouTube

Many thanks to the Supreme Beings who have lived up to their names again...
Im going to book it into my old garage even though its 80mile round trip.. Cant take chances on cam belts...

why 3 belts in 8 years anyway

Was wondering the same - mega miles?

Simon Jones wrote:If it were me, I'd take it to a garage that really knows their Bongos and will probably charge you a bit less money.

Ditto.

They sound like one of those garages that "Don't need to be told how to do our job!"

If they know that little about a Bongo - STEER CLEAR!

3 replacement cam belts would only suggest a total mileage of 300,000km or 180,000 miles which is pretty impressive but I'm sure we have Bongos on here that have reached this point. I suppose it also suggests that you have done 200,000km or 120, 000 miles in eight years which is 15,000 miles per year, so not that high really

I expect the first of those changes will be due to it being over 6 years old when the owner purchased it. or no record of it being changed before. Another one could be due to being another 6 years since the first one, so it's quite feasible the van has only done about 60,000 miles in an 8 year period. I'm sure Bluespanner will let us know the score presently .

Sorry Chaps forgot to check back after the intial answers. I bought the Bongo in 2005 it had about 30,000 km on the clock but the dealer couldnt provide any evidence of that. So I insisted the cam belt was changed before purchase. Changed it again at 117,000km and its now approaching 200,000km and the 3rd belt change. Ive been round western europe 5 or 6 times and clocked up around 20,000km on that alone. So ive packed some miles in. Looking to do another 2 week trip down to spain in July, so belt really needs to be done before that.

Going back to the coolant pump, does it need to be moved or adjusted in any way to access the belt? I went back to the local garage with the info that coolant pump didnt need to be changed because cam belt and did they want to have another go at quoting as their price was why in excess of others. He came back to me with a price of £285 thats the cam belt kit, tensioners, belt etc and labour saying was a 4hr job (Really ??). The garage has actually got a good reputation locally but this is still £60 more than the most expensive I've been quoted and £150 more than the cheapest. I think they've worked their ticket on this one. Any thoughts on alternative garages ? Im in West Dorset

The timing belt is about an hour's work to change, I run a garage and have done a couple of these

I've had two cambelt changes in three years. One because I didn't know how old the one was when I bought it and one when I had to have the head replaced just over a year later.