HELP - timing belt broken - dealer or independant mechanic?

[1750GT]

Yeap agree David and as it happens, my neighbor's daughter across the road has a 147, it's been running like a lovely until, gues what, her timing belt gave it up last week. She bought it second hand and had been servicing it a dealer. When the belt went they asked the dealer why this would have happened as they had been servicing it like clock work. The dealer checked the records and apparently the belt had never been done by the previous owner and the current dealer servicing the car had not picked such an important issue up when they started servicing the car. It cost her $5K to have the dealer fix the problem.

My question is why has Alfa let this type of problem persist in their cars, surely there would be a more robust part or a warning light on the dash? if it's such an essential part to replace?

1750GT

[Gary Pearce]

Quick. There is a running second hand motor on e-bay for $1700.00

[John Hanslow]

Don't have the service book in front of me but there is a 2 page spread for service stamps at the defined intervals, 10k, 20k  etc.  Then the next page is for workshop stamps for extra servicing and interestingly there is one for the belt change and the kms.

Cheers