Hi gang,
Some of you will know that as of today I’ve owned my MY2010 GS TD4 for exactly one month.
At 97k miles, only 2 owners, seemed in good condition, came with what seemed like a full history file, but no record of any major stuff, timing belt etc being done.
So, I did the belt etc myself the other week(another longish Fred). The ‘old’ belt, pump etc seemed too good to be 15yrs old, but as I has them off, wasn’t going to refit anything but new. But this got me thinking what else may have been done….
Only two garages had worked on this car, the dealer, then a local.
Both had records in the file of some work, inc in this was a ‘quote’ for £2k of replacement diff and associated work, haldex service, new discs, shock etc, but no record of the work being done
Given my experience with the T belt, I contacted the local garage, turns this quote work did take place in 2019, around 70km miles - records emailed over!
Result!

So, lesson is I suppose, check anyway, you never know! I have a cunning plan.....!

Nice bit of detective work which paid off and looks like the previous owner was prepared to spend a bit on which is reassuring...

I agree, nice bit of detective work from Bill, ….but with hindsight I’m sure Bill will agree, better to do the detective work before the mechanical work….! Would have saved a lot of aggro for Bill , but then we wouldn’t have read of his experiences thé ‘Fred’ & thé ‘ Cunning Plan’ which worked out ok in the end…
Well done Bill…! FL2 SD4 HSE Lux Auto MY 2012— current
D2 TD5 HSE Man MY 1999 470kmls….gone 2014 ….lovely engine..chassis rotten
D1 300TDI Man MY 1996 56kmls….gone 1999…D2 much better
Wife’s FL1 1.8P MY 2001 32kmls …gone 2007…has Mini since.