P0016 fault code.

The factory timing chain is 7 millimetres wide, and that is too little for this engine: the chain wears and stretches prematurely. The repair replaces it with an 8 millimetre chain. In a bad case the chain skips teeth or snaps, and then the valves and the cylinder head are seriously damaged. The early sign is a metallic knocking or rattling noise at idle when cold, together with power that slowly fades. In the fault memory, codes pointing to the relative position of the crankshaft and the camshaft appear: P0011, P0012, P0016, P0017 and P0018. The wear starts from 70,000 km. The maker issued a recall and a retroactive goodwill programme for it. The range is the engines built between October 2017 and January 2023, across five brands: Opel, Citroen, Peugeot, DS and Fiat. In Germany 141,700 cars were called in, and the workshops judge the condition of the chain by the noise of the engine. The warranty was extended to 10 years or 240,000 km, provided the servicing was done to the factory specification by a specialist workshop. Anyone who paid for the chain replacement themselves between January 2023 and June 2025 can claim the cost back, material and labour together. For used cars there is also a separate certificate confirming that the benefit passes to the next owner. The chain replacement on its own is between 1,200 and 2,000 euro. The specified oil is not a formality here: the engines covered by the recall need the lubricant to the FPW9.55535/03 specification, because its anti-wear additives slow the wear of the chain.

Opel's 1.4 litre turbo petrol engine (A14NET, later B14NET) is fitted to the Astra J, Insignia A, Zafira C and Mokka.

The Insignia and Astra 1.6 litre direct injection turbo petrol engines (A16XHT, A16SHT, later B16SHT / D16SHT) run a chain driven valvetrain unlike the belt driven A16LET 1.6 Turbo.

The valvetrain of the three cylinder 1.2 runs on a chain instead of a belt. Both the chain and the tensioner are undersized for this engine. The chain starts stretching as early as 60,000 to 80,000 km, and the tensioner loses its pressure. The sign is a rattling noise audible for a few seconds on a cold start. The earliest BME has the weakest tensioner, and the BZG is structurally the same. If the chain jumps, the engine is badly damaged inside, and the repair is typically an engine rebuild. A low oil level speeds the wear up enormously: the tensioner is driven by oil pressure. That is why the oil level has to be checked every 1,000 km on this engine.

With the 2008 EA888 VW switched from a belt to a chain, and the tensioner of the first two generations turned out weak: as the ratchet mechanism ages it does not hold its position when the engine stops and the oil pressure disappears. The oil drains overnight and the chain goes slack. The symptom looks harmless for a long time (a short, few second rattle on a cold start as the chain slaps the guide rail), and then one day it jumps, and the engine is badly damaged inside. From then on the repair is a cylinder head or an engine rebuild. Around 2012 the maker was already fitting an improved tensioner; on the old one only replacement helps, not monitoring the noise.

The timing chain of the longitudinal V6 diesel runs at the back of the engine, on the gearbox side, so replacing it means taking out the engine or the gearbox. That alone makes it expensive, but the mechanism is the point: the chains stretch and the hydraulic tensioners lose their pressure. The first and only early sign is a 2 to 3 second metallic rattle audible on a cold start. If that is ignored, the chain jumps or breaks, and the engine is badly damaged inside. The same chain kit also drives the oil pump: if that seizes, the engine is left without lubrication.

The check valve is missing from the oil supply of the timing chain tensioner. With the engine stopped the oil drains out of the passage, so at start-up the tensioner does not get pressure straight away, and over time that wears it out. On early production examples it appears from as little as 60 000 kilometres.