Have just arrived home from my local garage in my lovely (NOT), Nissan Almeira with a paultry 44,000 on the clock and facing a bill of £850 to replace a part by the name of "stretched timing chain". I am not flush with cash at any time of the year let alone at this festive and expensive time of the year and would like advice on replacing this part cheaper than quoted by said garage. Having read the other messages on this site I am more than cheesed off (polite version) that this appears to be a common fault with Nissan and not a thing is being done. £850 is a lot of money to me but I also need my car to commute to work to earn more money to pay my mortgage etc....Please could someone advice me of how to get this cost down for replacing this part. Thank you

Rach, December 2011

The timing chain kits are between £100~180 depending on engine type (petrol or diesel) and the book time to replace it is 4hrs for petrol and 5.5hrs for diesel so that part of the cost will depend on who you get to do it? main stealership, independant garage or mobile mechanic, the mobile will be the cheapest

nigel, December 2011

hi,as you will probably know by now this is a defect,although nissan have never held their hands up to the fault.I have seen almeras with around 30k on the clock in need of a replacement chain.£850 is not a bad price and its about the going rate.its easily replaced but its also time consuming.a streched chain will NOTaffect starting or performance,it tends to be a little noisy but that's all.is it possible that either the crank or cam sensor needs replacing and the garage is touting for extra work and replacing the chain also?if you are having any starting or poor performance problems its not the chain.

tranny granny, December 2011

DIY. service manual, a Haynes type available a lot of places, even libraries have some of them, other than that, you would need some tools, haynes manual would tell you any special tools needed, to lock the timing while chain is replaced, they even tell you how to make some of them if possible. Chain it self will not be expensive, it is the labour to do it.

SD, December 2011