I thought I would post a couple of pics of my car whilst it's at the local main dealer workshop here in Cheshire.
It had a big service at an Indy last week and whilst there a leaking vacuum pipe was found. Unfortunately the Indy needed the car for a week to do an engine out job. There is no courtesy car there and for the life of me I couldn't source a hire car.
So, on the insistence of my other half, I booked it into the main dealer who wants it for 3 days.
The engine/trans are out and the front of the car is off, along with the front suspension.
Surprisingly, the usual vac pipe to fail was ok but brittle, that was changed as a precaution. The pipe causing the problem was just on top of the gearbox casing and had a 1" split. Another adjacent vac pipe had completely come off the metal tube it was supposed to be attached to.
Whilst it is out, the engine has also had one new exhaust gas sensor and a new auxiliary pulley belt.
It will be an expensive few days but at least my car should run a bit stronger and hopefully last another 10 years or more.

 

Wow, thanks for the pics! They really pack quite a bit of, well, bits in there.

 

Yes, there sure are a lot of bits on there, the gearbox too.

 

All that for a split vacuum pipe?? Wow that's rough...

 

My thoughts exactly. A lot of expense for a twopenny bit piece of rubber pipe.
My total cost for the service and the remedial work will be around four and a half to five thousand pounds.
It was nice to be invited into the workshop to see what is involved though. Definitely not a job for the home mechanic, way too much involved. That's why, in a funny sort of way, I don't mind paying for the work.
Now, where's that old Balaclava got to!!

 

Yes telmun01, had the same problem in the 2007 GTC and, no, it is not an inexpensive fix. It is a known problem and seems to be happening to quite a few cars judging by posts here and elsewhere online. Bentley should at least help with labour costs as a show of good faith imho.

 

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WoW....what a job but peace of mind for many years to come.

Do you have any photos of the vac lines?

Thanks
J

 

Wow that's incredible. Sorry to hear you guys have to deal with that issue, good luck with it!

 

Sorry, no, I stupidly didn't think to take a picture of the vac' pipes. Having said that, there is nothing an average mechanic could do about it anyway.
I have removed, rebuilt and refitted many a V8, etc, but know this job is way beyond me without all of the special lifting gear and muscle power. The front suspension removal would be a major job in itself, then refitting would required proper realignment.
As we all know, taking things to pieces is easy. It's putting them back together that's hard.

Les.

 

Lord what a nightmare! That's a lot of $ for a rubber hose replacement.

 

Here is another picture. The Vac' pipes are the ones on top of the gearbox with the black arrow.




Les.

 

Thanks for the pic, I was hoping to see the pipe itself. Still blown away by that!

 

If it was an older, high mileage, low value car, could you not cut the floor / transmission tunnel to get access to these pipes?

Back in the day lots of people did this on Jaguars to get access to the inboard rear brake calipers.

 

Thanks for the photo Les.

Could operate on the area with some laparoscopic instruments?

J