Add me to the list...timing chain snapped on 1st May 2007 (recovery truck driver thought it was a fuel pump failure). Car has 81k and is March 2001 vintage, every service I've had has been with Vauxhall main dealer. Local dealership diagnosed and reported the snapped chain fault on 8th May 2007, and contacted me to offer head replacement at £2k or recon engine at £2.5k.
Suffice to say, I learnt a lot in 3 hours or so from these forums and many others. Contacted dealership back after educating myself to find (of course) that they were fully aware of the timing chain issue on the Z22SE, and that they'd already contacted Luton to raise a case number, and had been told that as my car was (only just) over 6 years old, Vauxhall would not contribute. Needless to say, I didn't accept this, and escalated the case from frontline Customer Services.
I felt pretty miffed that the first contact I had from the main dealers was to tell me the price of repairs, with no mention of this being a known fault, nor that they'd already called Vauxhall themselves - it did leave me wondering how many folks had forked over for a new engine or major repairs without ever knowing that this was a known issue.
On May 9th, I spoke with a very helpful chap at Vauxhall Customer Services, and talked about the problem. Politely but firmly, I quoted the various bits of information from here and other sources, about the long list of similar problems reported elsewhere, the field remedy, and he said he would speak to my dealer to check on the engine number etc. I left it 24 hours, and then called them again, and spoke to another chap (the first guy was unavailable this time), and he quoted the standard response to me that my engine number didn't appear to have any outstanding recalls, and there was nothing he could do to help. I gave him my chassis number, which definitely does fall in the affected range, but he wouldn't budge. Inspiration struck, and I requested that rather than he and I disagreeing by phone over a number, he instead contact my dealer, and get them to physically check my engine to see which version of the lubrication jet was fitted, but he wasn't too interested in this. Was starting to lose hope at this stage...
So, I spoke again straight away to my dealer, gave them the names of the folks I'd spoken to at HQ and mentioned what I'd asked HQ for, and they said they would contact them on my behalf to discuss a course of action. Later that day, my dealer contacted me back to say that they'd agreed with Vauxhall to actually dismantle the engine as required and physically check the nozzle, and would do so the following morning. So, better news.....
The following morning, my dealer contacted me to say that they'd checked the nozzle, and with barely disguised glee, told me that not only was it the smaller size, but it was also blocked! And that as a result of this, they'd phoned my helpful contact at Vauxhall, and that HQ had agreed to pay full repair costs, without hesitation!
On subsequent investigation, the snapped chain only resulted in 2 bent exhaust valves. There was a delay in getting hold of all of the chain kit parts, and the first chain tensioner they fitted was sticking, and so they replaced that again, and my car was delivered back to me on Friday last week, finally. So, a wholly satisfactory resolution. I have to say that in the main, Vauxhall were pretty good about it, and my dealer was too, after the initial 'standard' reply.
My thanks to all on here for collective contributions - certainly, mentioning 'Field Remedies' had a significant effect on the response from Vauxhall!