Hi folks. As above really. My stepdaughter has a fairly well neglected Mk1 Fabia 1.9SDI, and is also skint. It has no service history, but I've known the car for around 3 years. It hasn't covered many miles in that time, and obviously if it was my car I'd have changed it by now. I'm wondering how to break it to her that it should be done ASAP, unless the intervals on a 54bhp non-turbo diesel are exceptionally long.

Regards, Marge

Give it a quick visual check, the top cover is easy to take off.

80 000 miles (same as Polo SDI ASY)

Edited 11 December, 20169 yr by goulbak

The official timescale is 40,000 mls or 4 yrs. My local private VW garage reckons they will run to 5yrs carefully used. I have an 02 1.9Tdi which has done 123k miles and I have done 50,000mls and 5 years between my last two belt & water pump changes. It is vital that a cam belt kit,Water pump and tensioner are fitted each time, as apparently more often than not it is the plastic pump fittings which disintegrate and through the belt off, thus wrecking the engine. My cost nearly 5yrs ago was £420 inc. VAT.

 

I am coming up to my next 5yr replacement and am wondering if it is worth doing. I would be interested if anyone has a different idea of maximum belt time gap acheived on a carefully driven car and if any has gone more than 5yrs without failure.