evilC

That is not what I was led to believe and confirmed by Listers Skoda. If the timing belt is dry then why does it cost £1100 as quoted, to do a belt change that involves a partial strip down of the engine? I also appreciate that Skoda, presumably along with the other VAG manufacturers have extended the service life of the belt to 180,000mls or 15 years, which makes me suspicious. Extended service intervals are now being shown to have a deleterious effect on the engines with build up of contaminants causing failures.

I discovered to my horror recently that my 1.5TSI Superb Estate is fitted with a wet belt engine. Skoda don't give a service interval for this wet belt and besides its an astronomic cost (£1100 quoted) to replace it. Given that Ford and Peugeot are having horrendous problems with their wet belts, what are the chances of failure? I cannot see how anything other than a catastrophic failure can be detected to allow proper preventative maintenance. If the belt fails, either the teeth will strip, screwing up the valve timing or the belt will fail entirely, both of which will cause catastrophic engine damage. Also, if the faults with the Ford/Peugeot wet belts are indicative, then rubber dust from the belt wearing will mix with the oil and clog the oil pick-up pipe. As Skoda don't fit an oil pressure gauge there is no hope of assessing low oil pressure without damage already having occurred. It beggars belief that VAG engineers thought that running a rubber timing belt in oil was a good idea, its simply bad engineering. But then to say that there is no service interval means that we just have to sit and await the inevitable. At least with a steel timing chain a rattle after many, many miles is indicative of wear and the need for replacement, a belt is silent until the engine goes BANG!