2014 1.4 CoD - "maintenance free" Timing Belt?

[otto-mate]

Hi All, new owner here.

Just bought a 2014 A3 Sportback S Line S Tronic 1.4 CoD (from a family member). It has just 16K miles on it but I had read that it needs a new timing belt after 5 years (next year).

Local dealer checked chassis number and tells me that it does have a belt, not a chain, but that it's "maintenance free" and doesn't need replaced. Does that sound right?

Thanks

 

[GregS3]

If you can get them to follow that conversation up with an email, then I’d be inclined to take their word for it.

See what others think?

 

[kalniel]

Given the lack of stress on the belt compared to a more torquey engine I can believe it, but if you're thinking of keeping the car for a while then I'd think about changing it and getting free MOTs for the rest of the vehicles life.

 

[AJB]

The service schedule book with the car has no time interval for the timing belt and just says something like 133,000 miles (may be wrong on exact number, but something like that). This is effectively “lifetime interval” in their minds I expect.

More recently Audi UK (and also VW UK I think) have started saying 5 years, so their website and the dealers might well tell you 5 years.

Personally I suspect that’s just Audi UK adding their own extra work, along with regassing air con as a regular “service” thing (which also isn’t in the service book).

If you log into my Audi (can’t remember exactly how I did that, but somewhere via Audi’s website), which can know about your actual car’s spec and requirements, there’s no time limit listed for the belt, even though the UK part of the website says there is.

Personally I’m planning to leave mine until the mileage in the service book. If it was doing very low mileage, then I might get it done as if it was doing, say, 10,000 miles per year (eg at 12 or 13 years old). It probably wouldn’t be sensible to leave it 20 years if you were only doing 5k per year.

It is personal choice though, of risk vs cost.

 

[otto-mate]

Thanks guys. I have an email from the dealers stating it doesn't need changed