Timing belt - replacement cost

23e Heure

23e Heure

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My car has done 125K miles, and timing belt was last changed ~60K and ~8 years ago.

It's a 2.5TDI Quattro Avant, '03 plate.

I plan on keeping the car for another 2 to 3 years: so is it a good idea to replace the timing belt now?

If so... how much should I budget to get the work done?
I am waiting for my local garage to give me a price, and want to make sure they are in the right ballpark ;-)

Thanks all!
 
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Can't help with garage labour as I did the work myself but to give you an idea the TB kit I bought was £205 - belts, all idlers, tensioners, water pump & thermostat. Add another £110 if you do all the auxiliary belts & tensioners too. Book time for the job is 8 hours. You definitely need it done if you're keeping the car as yours is 2 years over-due!
 
I had mine done a couple of weeks ago (mine's a 2.0 petrol engine) and cost £295 at my local garage.

That was cam belt, water pump and tensioner. Hope that helps.
 
Thanks guys.
I went the expensive route and had it done at an Audi main dealer. Idea being this would be done right, and I'd have good service.
Big Mistake.
5 miles after we collected the car smoke started pouring out of the engine..,
Turns out they over tensioned one of the belt pulleys, in turn the spindle/bolt sheared., and the bolt lodged into the fanbelt/fan housing and the fan disintegrated.

This was just hours before I was due to drive the family to Portsmouth for half term holiday in France.
Dealer was pretty useless (service manager on holiday, only a junior handling the problem).
They had no loan car, so I've paid to hire a car for 8 days in Europe (not cheap... Cue big argument with the dealer when I get home).

Moral of the story: use a good independent garage, not a main dealer!
 
Well that's crap, should be able to trust a dealer to do the job right.

I used a reliable indie to do mine, they work on all the local cabs so I was happy that they should know what they are doing. Mine is a 2.5tdi. Timing belt, idlers, tentioners, water pump, aux belt, all new auxillery pullies and tensioners as mine all had play and the thermostat, cost me £650 with genuine parts. Covered 20k since it was done with no issues. Car is on 194000 miles now, I will be doing the belts myself next time.
 
All this talk of cam belts. I think it's time for me to sell my locking tool kit!
 
Man that sounds an absolute nightmare! Get it done prior to long journey expecting it to give you some
Peace of mind and the exact opposite......
 
Thanks guys for the sympathy.

What I did not mention was that they also MOTed the car... And issued an MOT certificate with the wrong registration number on it.

Made a deep 5cm scratch on the tailgate.

Did not use paper covers on the floor, and left big oil stain on the drivers side mat.

Phoned me at 2pm to say the car was ready for collection, then kept my wife waiting for over an hour - with screaming toddler - when she arrived to collect at 4pm.

Yes this post now sounds like a diatribe, but all these things are fact, and 6 days after the car broke down I am still waiting for the service manager to call me back to discuss.

Very tempted to name and shame the dealer...
 
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Oh dear, considering you pay a premium and the fact they are an Audi dealership - you would expect the work to have been done correctly.
 
This is frightening.You should warn others by saying who or where.I have seen the whole job done by Adamms24( in his garden) and its needs skill and care.Mine had been bodged before too but not badly just timing out but has run well since Chris sorted it.
 
It was SGSmith in Sydenham.

I'm coming back to the thread again after 6 months because I have just had the main crank seal done with them and... Had almost exactly the same experience!!

Car was meant to be ready same day, they kept it 10 days without explaining delay.
Then less than 20 miles after collection the repair failed and the car was heading back to them on a flatbed.
They had overtorsioned two bolts when putting it back together, which led to them shearing when I first drove it.

The customer service and response from them has been simply shocking. When I finally got to speak to their head guy, he told me that a 125k mile B6 is considered an "aged" model, and so they assign the work to their apprentices.
Remind me why I paid the main dealer premium!!??
Speechless...
 
I thought you learned your lesson first time ! Anyway, i have seen a couple of v6 tdi leaking oil from the gasket between block and crankshaft seal housing, it's very minor and best left alone- it requires removal of lower, upper sump, oil pump and balancer shaft assembly and a handful of other bits and bobs. The balancer shaft needs to be timed although it's rather easy it's often overlooked ! The v6 leaks mainly from rocker cover gaskets, if the leak is not too sever i would leave it alone- it's the best anti rust protection !
 
Very tempted to name and shame the dealer...[/QUOTE said:
Don't be tempted....... DO IT we all need to know dealers to avoid, I have used Camberley Audi once and that was enough for me, never again will I use a main dealer, not even to buy from, talk about head up own ****!!!!
Click to expand...
 
adamss24 said:
I thought you learned your lesson first time !
Click to expand...

I hear you,and of course I had said I would never go back tp SG Smith... but because IMO they should have spotted the crank seal leak when they had the car apart in November to do the timing belts, the logic was to go back to them and make them fix what they should've done last time. Oh, and by arguing this, they offered to do it half standard price.

Anyway, twice bitten, forever shy... I will NEVER go near that Audi dealer again.
Worse: having spent best part of £2k on my car in the past 5 months (the plan being to invest in some work on it and then hold onto it for another couple of years), I am now so upset with the car (because of them) that I'm just biting the bullet and upgrading to a B8.5 A4 Avant.

Christ, the worst part is that webuyanycar are offering me £1100 for the thing! I guess some lucky fella is going to get a nice 2.5TDI Quattro Avant from them at auction as a bargain soon!
 
I had something similar happen to me with my 1.8t which destroyed my engine because of a mistake on fitting the cambelt so know what's it's like but my dealers were great with sorting it out.Still used them but only for jobs I can't do.
 
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