Hi everyone,

I bought a Skoda Superb I saw online last week, sight unseen from a Vauxhall dealer in South Wales. It's the first time I've done this so was initially hesitant but needn't have worried as the car is spotless. Very happy with the condition. The issue is the work the garage did that I negotiated into the price. It's a 2015 car (old shape) in Elegance spec so comes with all the bells and whistles, but it's on 61,000 miles so I said I'd like them to change the timing belt and water pump as part of the deal. We agreed a price and they did the work.

 

They delivered the car and I started using it with no issues, drove spot on. I did notice a ticking noise when the engine was cold from the timing belt area but it went away as soon as it was warm, usually within about 10 mins. This morning I went out and started the car (particularly cold morning), it fired up and after 5 seconds I heard a loud screech, again from the timing belt area. I shut the car off and left it, but have sent the garage an email expressing my displeasure. It sounds to me like they did the work but tried to save money by not replacing a tensioner or something.

 

Anyway, waiting to hear back from them but just wondered if its likely any damage was done in that short time? Probably hard to tell. 

 

Thanks for any help/insight!

 

Jay

 

Something definitely sounds off here. I would suggest that any further work gets done at a garage that's known for doing good work on VAG cars.

 

Do not attempt to start it again until you can turn the engine through at least two full rotations by hand to ensure timing hasn't slipped. TBH if it was me, I'd want the belt job redone by someone with the right tools and who is familiar with the job. Sounds like the seller may have half-arsed it to maximise their margin.

Possible they didn't fit genuine parts or they tensioned the belt pulley the wrong way, or didn't fit the tensioner tang in the slot.

Like Chimaera says, only let a skoda/vw specialist fit belts on these and ideally use parts from TPS, that way you get the latest part revision not the superseded parts the factories sell to ECP, or fitted the wrong waterpump, or didn't bother to remove the engine mount to replace the tensioner stud (can be replaced in situ but it's tricky). If it is not tightened correctly, it will come undone.

Think there was a tech bulletin to replace noisy belts, TPS ones would have been supplying the latest one though.

Over to them or money back.