> Ford's recently designed engines were designed with a timing belt internally that operated in an oil bath.

Is not designed by Ford. Those are (most probably) the same as the infamous Puretech motors developped by PSA. Is a Peugeot car disguised as Ford (or a Ford car with a Peugeot motor if you prefer). Several brands use it, under different names. Most probably they bought them under a big discount.

That motor was durable, tested and approved, But... Europe said: You must adjust this and that for the new legislation, and the change made a little bit of gasoline to mix in the oil and reach the belt. Problem: Gasoline eats rubber over time, and the timing belt is made of rubber.

The real problem was not so much that the timing belt could root entirely and break, leading to a catastrophic failure.

Much before that, the pump that sucks oil into the motor gets slowly clogged with rubber bits, triggering a "pressure oil failure" warning. Also the computer reacts to a slow lubrication reducing the power to protect the motor, so you have a car with random power failures and alarming warnings. If you ignore this, eventually the rubber dust accumulated could block entirely the oil from entering into the motor. And then your motor is destroyed in no time.

Nobody suspected that when Peugeot sold thousands of cars. A few years later, many cars that were still basically new, started to die or require expensive reparations. The makers warned on the manual that the belt must be changed often and this avoids entirely the problem. Second problem: Only car freaks follow the manual specifications. Every common owner expected the timing belt to last for the same as a traditional one (160,000 to 240,000Km or so), when it must be changed at 60,000 or so. Changing the time belt is not cheap and they ignored the warning as a grabbing cash trick.

For a while, common people were still buying cars with big discounts that mechanics didn't wanted to touch with a teen foot pole. Spanish influencers started to rebrand the pure-tech motors as pudre-tech (in Spanish: it-rots-tech), and the term slowly reached the public opinion.

Even following the specifications, you are stuck with a car that is more expensive to maintain.

Peugeot fixed the issue changing the belt material, but the reputational damage was done and was eventually absorbed into Stellantis, a superbrand created with Chinese, Italian and American investors.

If your car uses gasoil you don't have this problem. Only gasoline. Peugeot declared in jun 2026 that those family of gasoline motors are about to be finally discarded and replaced by a new motor (with a chain belt and designed for better integration with hybrid systems).