today the Peugeot garage in Geneva has confirmed that my Peugeot 308 has the timing chain broken at 60000 km and about 6 years.
This is extremely annoying because I did all the revisions and all the small fixes in the Peugeot garage. I followed all advises, like replacing the timing chain only at ~12000 km (I am really far below that!!).
Of course the guarantee is over and the garage does not seem to be taking any responsibility...
That's a bugger (if we are talking about the same thing, check on wikipedia to make sure)
The timing chain is life long and should not fail like that at so low mileage. I think the engine damage is huge, probably you are looking at very expensive rebuilding which in the end will cost more than to replace the car, I guess.
You can pursue this further as it is definitely not normal and known fault with the engines (from the article above) so you might get some compensation or fix from the manufacturer.
Well, normally a rebuild is very expensive here, so my advice would be to source a new engine from the breakers. Look in Germany too, it might be worth it to send the car there (on a trailer) and have it fixed there.
A colleague had the head gasket fail on his car and was quoted 6000chf for a repair (a repair which I did back home for about 1000chf, including new valves, guides, seats, head machining, oil/coolant change, work and of course the gasket itself). I can only imagine what the bill caused by a snapped chain damage would be...if they even CAN repair it here and don't suggest new engine directly.
To answer your question, if the timing chain broke and the pistons bent all the valves, you might be able to get away with a new chain, new valves and head gasket. If any of the valves actually broke, the engine might be a good boat anchor.
But consider yourself fortunate. You got 58500 km more out of your Peugeot than I got out of mine. My story of that car is enough to make you buy a horse. Never, but never will I ever buy another French car.
Not if he talks to the same people i did. My Peugeot 405 spun a bearing at 1500 km and the factory said it was my fault. I could tell a story about that little encounter.
Does this car have a timing belt, or chain? I never buy a car that has a timing belt for the reason that they go can go twang which almost always results it catastrophic engine damage.
According to a friend who is a big shot at Nippon Denso (supplier to a lot of car manufacturers) the car companies use a belt as penny-pinching measure as it is cheaper to produce a belt driven camshaft than a chain driven one.
I had a Nissan lunch the timing belt and vowed never to buy a belt driven engine again; and I haven't. BMW and Mazda are two major manufacturers who use chain drive camshafts.
Even though the French makers have risen up the ranking in the reliability surveys in the last few years, you are asking for trouble with a French car compared to a Japanese car. To be fair to the French this is also a problem across the VAG group, Opel\GM et al.
OK, it seems the petrol engine was developed jointly by BMW and Peugeot\Citroen and seems to have a chain driven camshaft.
The diesel was developed jointly by Ford and has a belt.
If it is a diesel and the chain fails (normally the tensioner) at 60k I would be frothing at the mouth. I have seen chain driven Toyota petrol engines go 300k on the original cam chain. Chians are good.
Cam belts can go at any time really. A mate's Astra went at 18,000km.