I am planning on changing the auxiliary belt on my diesel octavia in the near future and I was wondering if it is as straight forwards as Mr Haynes seems to suggest.

From previous experience the Haynes manual tend to leave out those little bits such as needing 3 arms, an extra elbow or some form of obscure socket.

Answers on a post cars please.

I changed the tensioner pulley on mine, so the belt had to come off.

If I remember rightly, the hardest part of putting the belt back on was extracting the pin that was locking the pulley in the "tension off" position when I finished.

Now that I think about it, part of the arch liner was a bit of a pain too, but I'm not sure if that would need to come off if you are just changing the belt.

Edited 21 December, 200916 yr by ExAudiSi

it's not too bad if you take your time. Found that 2 peaople make it far easier as one can hold things from the top while the other threads the belt over the pulleys. Getting the wheel arch liner and splash guard off is essential.

If you are replacing the tensioner as well then you'll need a couple of different length and shape spanners/sockets as one of the bolts is a bit of a pain to reach. I found it easier to remove the pin before putting the tensioner on (didn't seem to affect the spring) as there is very little room to remove it when the tensioner is bolted in.

good luck

andrew

Not sure if it's different on the diesel or not. But on the 1.8T it's a piece of piddle!

No need to remove any splash guards or arch liners, just open the bonnet. The only tools you need are a suitable sized spanner to pull back the tensioner, and an allen key or drill bit to lock the tensioner in the up position. Then just slip the old belt off. Then feed the new belt down, and fiddle around a bit until it's sat properly. Then put the spanner on the tensioner again, unlock it, and let it back into position. Job done. Probably took me about 10mins. The only fiddly bit is locating the new belt properly on all the various pulleys, but that just takes a bit of patience.

Thanks for the responses, I think I'll be OK doing it.

Looking at it I will definately need to remove the wheel arch liner, there is naff all room under the bonnet on a TDi.