VW cambelt - still regarded as vital to change at 5yrs?
Discussion
Burwood said:
I have a Golf TDI Station car which we've owned since new and this is my dilemma. Local indie quoted me £605 for the cam belt/pump which is steep. It should have the DSG oil and a service. Just over 1k all in. the cars worth what, 2.5k. 12 year old 60k miles. I chose to simply change the oil and filter.
£605 is bonkers - do they mostly service Audis so have their pricing more aligned to them?I wouldn't take a 12yr old car to a dealer but VW have a fixed price of £549 and it's not long ago they'd do it for £349 - some of that £549 is to allow for the newer diesels having a more expensive water pump. You read on VAG forums of people getting even the newer engines done for £350 at indies.
Sheepshanks said:
Burwood said:
I have a Golf TDI Station car which we've owned since new and this is my dilemma. Local indie quoted me £605 for the cam belt/pump which is steep. It should have the DSG oil and a service. Just over 1k all in. the cars worth what, 2.5k. 12 year old 60k miles. I chose to simply change the oil and filter.
£605 is bonkers - do they mostly service Audis so have their pricing more aligned to them?I wouldn't take a 12yr old car to a dealer but VW have a fixed price of £549 and it's not long ago they'd do it for £349 - some of that £549 is to allow for the newer diesels having a more expensive water pump. You read on VAG forums of people getting even the newer engines done for £350 at indies.
Burwood said:
I have a Golf TDI Station car which we've owned since new and this is my dilemma. Local indie quoted me £605 for the cam belt/pump which is steep. It should have the DSG oil and a service. Just over 1k all in. the cars worth what, 2.5k. 12 year old 60k miles. I chose to simply change the oil and filter.
Mine was £475 for the belt & pump, which was leaking @ 6 years, 55000 miles. Aux belt was contaminated so he recommended changing that. Full service too, came in at £770I did have what I thought was the VW standard clutch slave cylinder issue, pedal drops overnight & needed pumping to make it ok. Which I understand is a grand to fix.. However he bled the clutch fluid free of charge to see how it goes. Touch wood it’s been ok since !
xjay1337 said:
stevemcs said:
Depends, some of the cambelt kits are £100 plus Vat, some are £150 plus VAT taking your time its 3-4 hours from start to finish so at an indi thats £180 - £240 in labour alone, £300 is too cheap.
We have also seen a Mk7 where it looks like the tensioner had been replaced at some point in its life - it was on 80k and less than 4 years old, looked like when it was put back together they had some how managed to get the belt to sit on the edge of the tensioner until the cambelt cover rubbed its way through and it when bang.
Granted most belts look ok when they come off and VAG seem to over cautious when it comes to schedules. Personally I wouldn't risk it, belt wise Gates or INA are good quality.
Gates belt failed on my friends car. He was fully forged running 500hp in a Golf Mk5 gti with 4wd.We have also seen a Mk7 where it looks like the tensioner had been replaced at some point in its life - it was on 80k and less than 4 years old, looked like when it was put back together they had some how managed to get the belt to sit on the edge of the tensioner until the cambelt cover rubbed its way through and it when bang.
Granted most belts look ok when they come off and VAG seem to over cautious when it comes to schedules. Personally I wouldn't risk it, belt wise Gates or INA are good quality.
i've had mine replaced on SEATs three times, all at around the £550 mark, includes the water pump. Generally done at 85k miles after having it confirmed by SEAT UK that the interval is 5 years or 150 kilometers. One thing to remember is that the SEATVW work comes with a 2 year warranty and likely the indy's will come with nowt. There's nothing fraught with the swap, just timing mark alignments and bottom and top pulley locking pins, then an engine mount to be undone, just takes a time.
icepop said:
i've had mine replaced on SEATs three times, all at around the £550 mark, includes the water pump. Generally done at 85k miles after having it confirmed by SEAT UK that the interval is 5 years or 150 kilometers. One thing to remember is that the SEATVW work comes with a 2 year warranty and likely the indy's will come with nowt. There's nothing fraught with the swap, just timing mark alignments and bottom and top pulley locking pins, then an engine mount to be undone, just takes a time.
SEAT guarantee the job for 5 yrs. The indie we’ve used guarantees it for 2 yrs, same as VW as he uses the VW kit.I bit the bullet and booked it in today with the dealer, there’s nothing in it price-wise and I’m going to renew the VW extended warranty so don’t want to give them a reason to query the work.
It’s very annoying as VW Germany told me it’s OK for 210,000kms with no age limit but then said it’s up to each country to decide.
fourstardan said:
Cambelt change is such a rip off, missus has a MK5 golf that's 16 years old now, the guy we use to do work on the drive did the cam and pump on that in about an hour.
As best I can gather on the latest EA288 diesel it's a good couple of hours and the water pump is a variable one so more expensive than a basic pump. There's also some special kit needed to refill the coolant system as there are multiple circuits (it gets warm amazingly quickly and doesn't have an electric booster heater).I know when we had it done on our old engined (not a TSi) 1.4 petrol mk6 Golf by an indie a few years ago he said the VW offer price at the time (£299 belt only, £349 with pump) was lower than he wanted to charge.
Sheepshanks said:
SEAT guarantee the job for 5 yrs. The indie we’ve used guarantees it for 2 yrs, same as VW as he uses the VW kit.
I bit the bullet and booked it in today with the dealer, there’s nothing in it price-wise and I’m going to renew the VW extended warranty so don’t want to give them a reason to query the work.
It’s very annoying as VW Germany told me it’s OK for 210,000kms with no age limit but then said it’s up to each country to decide.
Probs I imagine , being arguing the toss with a smaller garage when you ask for a new engine due to the belt going. As regards life span, it's more the water pump that'll cause the failure at higher mileage intervals leading to the belt unseating. Most belts are pretty good when you replace them..I bit the bullet and booked it in today with the dealer, there’s nothing in it price-wise and I’m going to renew the VW extended warranty so don’t want to give them a reason to query the work.
It’s very annoying as VW Germany told me it’s OK for 210,000kms with no age limit but then said it’s up to each country to decide.
I'm somewhat sensitive to this as I had a Cavalier rep-mobile break its belt three times - once leaving me on the central reservation of the M62 for 30 mins.
As it was a non-interference engine it didn't do any damage but it's not an experience I'd want to repeat, especially as if it happened with the Tiguan there'd be a multi £K bill to fix it.
Even these days I've heard of them failing not long after being changed - I wonder how that compares to those that break because they've been left?
As it was a non-interference engine it didn't do any damage but it's not an experience I'd want to repeat, especially as if it happened with the Tiguan there'd be a multi £K bill to fix it.
Even these days I've heard of them failing not long after being changed - I wonder how that compares to those that break because they've been left?
Had this done now. Not sure why but dealer said they'd made a mistake with the quote (I wasn't aware of that) and 'only' charged the cambelt price of £494 but they did change the pump. Should have been £549 so feels like a bit of a win. The pump (a switchable one on this engine) is itemised out at over £100 so the uplift is odd anyway.
I say "had it done" - the engine bay looks remarkably undisturbed. Not the slightest smudge in the dust on the engine cover and air filter housing etc. The pump does look new as does the coolant. Maybe they do the job from underneath? Or I just paid £500 for a tick in the book.
I say "had it done" - the engine bay looks remarkably undisturbed. Not the slightest smudge in the dust on the engine cover and air filter housing etc. The pump does look new as does the coolant. Maybe they do the job from underneath? Or I just paid £500 for a tick in the book.
stevemcs said:
most belts show signs of wear when removing
'Granted most belts look ok when they come off' So which is it, stevemcs? I suspect the latter. Looks to me like you are in the business and have a vested interest in getting A Punter to have as much work done as possible. As has been said, modern aramid belts are designed to last the life of the car and only fail if something they drive fails. Our old Focus is nearly 20yrs old and approaching 150,000 miles. Last time I looked, the belt looked fine and I have no intention of changing it. The belt in our old Passat 2.0GL was still fine at over 240,000 miles when the car was traded in, although I did have to replace the whining tension pulley which was about to seize and fry it.
Collecting my 2015 2.0 Mk 7 from main dealer today and asked them to check records for this work on my car. It was done by the main dealer I bought it from in the course of the approved used check a couple of years ago. He showed me the screen and they are now quoting over £1000 for the belt and pump combo!
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