2005 Vauxhall Corsa misfire-camshaft

[tbourner]

Anyone know anything about Vauxhalls? Our 1.2SXi developed a misfire briefly a few days ago - it went away on a restart so I planned to pick up some plugs and change them.

 

Then coming out of Portsmouth it misfired again except it sounded like a diesel - engine warning light etc. I pulled in and phoned the AA. He came out and said it isn't the plugs it's the coil pack, so my plans for a £15 fix turn into a £90 fix!

 

Then he opens the oil filler cap and says my exhaust cam is snapped! Apparently it's a common thing on the 2005 Corsa, and ONLY the 2005 model, that when it misfires it snaps the camshaft! So my plans for a £90 fix turn into a £1000 fix.

 

It's currently at the Vauxhall garage, AA man said they sometimes pay half the repair bill as it's obviously a manufacturing fault (see this link), so I'll go in tomorrow and see what they say - I don't hold out much hope though seeing as it's 5 years old and I didn't buy it from them!!

So my other option is to try to get it to another garage, or do it myself. I'll hunt for a cheap cam and coil pack tomorrow morning, but does anyone know how easy it is to change? It's a chain driven DOHC so presumably whip off the cam cover on the exhaust side and swap them? I'm unsure about keeping the timing correct and apparently need a special tool for the cam caps though.