I was taking out the wipers water bottle to clean it out, 2 weeks ago when I dropped a 10mm socket into the engine bay, and it went under the oil cooler.
I jacked up the car on the drivers side, took off the wheel and took off the small panel in the wheel arch the beside the belts of the car and got the socket out.
I said to myself I'll had a look at the belts while I'm here and spotted this on the power steering belt

Needless to say, The car stayed put for the last two weeks while I waited for the guy who works on my car to do it for me , but last friday and €60 later the new belt is fitted and the other belts checked ( as much as you can with the engine in place ) and look ok


I kept the belt, There were tiny individual cracks on the belt, I had seen them before ( I usually pop the wheel arch cover off and check that belt when I re-grease the brake shims) and I was keeping any eye on it them, but this is the big crack on the removed belt

The belt had almost excatly 24k on it and it was 2 years 5 months old since it was fitted!!
I'll be keeping an eye on the belts even more now!

Thanks 10mm socket

My p/s belt was in a similar condition to yours and Rog noticed it during a service and promptly changed it for me. Looks like you've had a little bit of luck there, it's almost always the aux belts that go wrong and take everything else with them rather that the cambelt itself.

I dropped the lid from my chargecooler reservoir down the back of my engine about 6 months ago. Took me ages to get it out (in the dark), but in doing so I leant on the fuel pipes that join to the fuel rail - and one pipe nearly came off!.....

Dunno if it was loose before, but a close shave!

Borrowed a garage with a pit last week and took the undertray off for the first time after dropping the oil filler cap down behind the block (don't ask). I've now got a 10yr collection of torx bits, a 13ml socket, misc screwdriver bits etc from under the engine where the previous 4 owners dropped them.

Also took time to degrease the whole underside of the engine and treat the nasty rusty bits under the rad with rustkiller & triflow gate paint (excellent thick anti rust paint).

At least your was only cracked - I went to Icebergs for something mundane like handbrake cables and while we were also poking round under the bonnet, he noticed a slightly fubar'd belt

So far, I've twice dropped the oil filler cap inside, and a bolt v. small. Fortunately, managed to reach in and get 'em back, and car still works so cant have done too much damage!

I had one of these bad incident turned good tonight. I topped up my oil and forgot to put the cap back on (again), thankfully I started the car and remembered straight away. Anyway, got home and popped the bonnet to double check everthing was ok, heard a hissing sound and saw coolant leaking from one of the radiator hoses Anyway, it's probably just a loose clip that needs tightening (it was too dark to tell), but I don't want to think what might have happened if i lost all my coolant milling about somewhere This is my second lucky escape with coolant loss

Ha ha, That is knackered. Reminds me of a service I did on a Fiat 127. The timing belt (what was left of it) was about a CM wide. the rest of it was in shreds around the engine bay!

The owner was one lucky girl!