A Wet-Belt Peugeot Other Garages Hadn't Sorted: Ricky, The Test Station

The Peugeot had already been round the houses. It had been to various other garages, it had had its wet timing belt replaced, it had had "various bits and bobs done", and every now and then the oil warning still came on. By the time it reached The Test Station, none of that work had stopped the light.

Ricky, who runs the garage, recommended a flush and an Oil Booster. The light went out. Asked whether the car had been back, Ricky said: "Not seen the car back since." Then, being straight about it, he added: "Obviously we probably have for other things, but this had been to another garage for the same concern, and this product resolved their issue."

We filmed with Ricky on 6 November 2025, with David from TEC 2000 UK asking most of the questions.

Watch the video with the full transcript

Two branches, twenty years

"Been established about 20 years," Ricky says. "Got two branches, very local to each other in Wallington, Carshalton area. MOT, service and repairs mainly. Engine rebuilds every now and then." The workshop we filmed in is a big, high-roofed unit with a row of red and blue two-post lifts, a forklift parked by the door and a Snap-on van outside in the yard. One branch is at the Station Depot on London Road in Wallington, the other on Stanley Park Road in Carshalton Beeches, a few streets from Banstead Road Garage, where Dave told us about the oil his customer didn't believe had been changed.

TEC 2000 has been used there for more than ten years: "especially the last five years, more predominantly in every service job we do."

A minimum of an engine flush

For readers outside the UK: British garages usually sell servicing in tiers. A minor or interim service is usually an oil and filter change with basic checks. A full service, often sold as the annual service, adds more filters and a longer inspection list, and many garages also offer a major service with plugs, fluids and more. Exactly what goes into each varies from garage to garage. The Test Station puts an Engine Flush into every one of them, so even a customer who only ever buys the cheapest service still gets the old oil and the deposits taken out before the new oil goes in.

On diesels the fuel treatment gets special attention.

Putting the treatment into the fuel filter housing is Ricky's own practice, used where the system allows it. The standard way, and the one on the can, is to pour Diesel System Cleaner into the tank.

Emissions trouble with no fault codes

Every garage that does MOTs knows this car: it is due its test, there is an emissions problem, and the diagnostic scan comes back clean. Ricky has a set first move for it.

The condition matters. With a fault code there is something to diagnose, and no can of anything replaces diagnosis. Without one, a few days of driving on treated fuel costs the customer very little, and Ricky's experience is that "more often than not" it is enough. Customers who struggled the year before may get simple advice from him: "Put one of these products in twice a year just to help clean out the insides of your engine."

Some customers now ask for it themselves. "We actually have people come in now and say, 'Do you mind if I buy one of them fuel treatments off you?'" The reason they give him is fuel economy: "they've noticed a difference in the product, you know, four miles per gallon." That figure is what his customers tell him from their own driving, and Ricky passes it on as that.

The wet-belt Peugeot

Back to the car from the top of this page. Ricky couldn't remember which model it was. He didn't need to explain the type of engine to anyone in the trade.

What a wet belt is, and why it causes oil problems

A wet belt is a timing belt that runs inside the engine, lubricated by the engine oil, instead of behind a dry cover. Peugeot and Citroën have used them on a lot of engines over the last decade, the small three-cylinder petrols in particular. The idea is a quieter, longer-lasting belt. In practice the belt spends its whole life in hot oil, and when that oil is old, diluted with fuel or the wrong specification, the belt material can start to break down. Fragments end up in the sump, where they can block the oil pump pick-up. The first sign is often exactly what this owner had: an oil warning light that comes and goes.

That is also why a new belt alone doesn't always end the story. The new belt goes into an engine that may still have sludge in the galleries and belt fragments on the oil pump pick-up strainer. A flush and a full drain go after the sludge and anything still loose in the oil. Fragments stuck on the strainer only come off with the sump removed, which is why many garages check it as part of a belt job on these engines. Ricky's approach was to clean the oil side of the engine properly: flush in, engine up to temperature so the flush circulates, everything drained, new filter, new oil, then Oil Booster in the fresh oil.

One practical point for anyone running one of these engines. Use the oil grade and specification the manufacturer lists for it, and don't stretch the change interval. The belt was designed around that oil. It is the cheapest protection a wet-belt engine can get.

Ricky's view on these engines, from later in our conversation: TEC 2000 is "also proven to work in the wet belt engines that people are worried about."

"We're probably prolonging so many engines on the road by using your products."

Ricky, The Test Station

Another Peugeot, a sticky valve and a rebuild that didn't happen

Asked for an example of what the products had done, Ricky's first story wasn't the one in the video. It was another Peugeot, a fleet car.

"That's now good as gold," he added. A valve sticking in its guide is usually a deposit problem. On the oil side that means varnish and cooked-on oil on the stem and in the guide, which is what a flush is made to loosen. Carbon on the combustion side of the valve is out of its reach. For a fleet car facing a possible rebuild, it was a cheap thing to try first.

Take the rocker cover off and the history shows

Ricky has a simple way of telling whether a customer's claimed service history is real.

He went on. That car had been serviced there every year for "the last three or four years", flush included, and under the cover it was "clean as a whistle." He is careful about how much he claims for it. "I believe it's from the products we put in," he said. David put it down to the engine flush, Ricky agreed, and then asked the question himself: "I think if we wasn't using the product, would it have been as clean?" And then: "We're probably prolonging so many engines on the road by using your products."

£200 to £300 an injector

Asked what injectors cost, Ricky put it in money terms, and it is a hard point to argue with.

When David asked whether he has to change injectors often, Ricky said they "are quite renowned on new modern cars, yes," and on vans too. He knows a lot of main dealers who will often replace all four injectors when a car comes in with an injector problem, "and all it takes is one of them to be seized in to make that job a nightmare." Against that, a treatment at every service is cheap. "If we can apply this every year to their servicing, and it means that their injectors may last another five years, then yeah, we're here for it."

Vans get a specific mention. Diesel particulate filters clean themselves by burning off soot during regeneration, and regeneration needs sustained speed and heat. "A lot of these vans, they don't go down the motorway like they used to. So we often get DPF problems." His use for the diesel treatment on those vans is to help keep the fuel side, the EGR valve and the DPF cleaner: "these products work fantastic when you do a full service and DPF regens and stuff." The treatment is there to help keep a DPF clean. A filter that is already blocked needs a forced regeneration or a professional clean.

Who pays if the customer doesn't want it

Adding anything to a bill makes some garages nervous. Ricky takes the risk himself.

That is The Test Station's own promise to its own customers, paid out of Ricky's own pocket. When David asked whether anyone had ever taken him up on it, the answer was no: "I've never had anyone come back and say, 'I didn't want that on my bill,' or, 'Why did you fit that to my bill?'"

He does get the odd question. "What is that? What is TEC 2000?" The answer is on a board in the office.

The boards do some of the talking for him. "People come in and often just point at it and say, 'Look, read that. It's a fantastic product.'"

The car that smelled of spilt milk

One story from Ricky had nothing to do with engines. The Test Station now uses the TEC 2000 Airco Fresher Service Spray in every air conditioning service it does, and one car tested it properly.

Anyone who has had milk soak into a car's carpet knows how hard that smell is to shift once it has got into the ventilation. Ricky did all three jobs together, which is the right way to do it: a new cabin filter, a proper air conditioning service and the spray through the whole system.

The products Ricky uses

• TEC 2000 Engine Flush. The minimum in every service at The Test Station, from minor to full.
• TEC 2000 Diesel System Cleaner in every full service on a diesel, and TEC 2000 Fuel System Cleaner for petrol engines. His first step with an emissions problem and no fault codes.
• TEC 2000 Oil Booster. For customers who complain about oil consumption, and on the wet-belt Peugeot.
• TEC 2000 Airco Fresher Service Spray. In every air conditioning service.

Questions we get about this

My car failed the MOT on emissions but there are no fault codes. What should I try first?

Ricky's approach: a fuel system treatment and a few days of normal driving before anything more expensive. For a petrol car, a fresh oil and filter change with an engine flush can also help: Dave at Banstead Road Garage had a V8 Jaguar that failed its emissions test twice and passed straight away after a flush, fresh oil and a new filter. If there are fault codes, get them diagnosed first.

My wet-belt Peugeot or Citroën keeps showing an oil warning light. Is it the belt?

It often is, or it is debris from a deteriorating belt reaching the oil pump pick-up. Have the belt inspected. If it has already been replaced and the light keeps coming back, have the oil pump pick-up strainer checked for belt fragments, which means taking the sump off. On the car in this story Ricky did a flush, a full drain, a new filter, new oil and Oil Booster, and the light went out.

How often should a diesel get a fuel system cleaner?

At The Test Station it goes into every full service on a diesel, and Ricky advises customers who have struggled with emissions to use it twice a year. How much to use depends on what you are treating. A concentrated dose in a part-full tank is a stronger treatment for an engine with symptoms, a full tank is a maintenance dose.

More from the same trip

This film was shot on 6 November 2025, on a two-day trip round garages in south London and Surrey. Dave at Banstead Road Garage had a customer who didn't believe his oil had been changed, and Simon at Fallsbrook Motors a VW Crafter whose oil filter came out blocked solid. Joe at Joe's Repair Shop in Epsom talks about five years of TEC 2000 in every service.