The water pump, pulleys and tensioner are typically the weak points.

 

As for the 5 years, I may be wrong but I think that’s something that rarely appears outside of the UK market.

Have people looked at the "High Mileage Club" on this site. 😳

Isn’t it good to change the serpentine belt and its tensioner as well as alternator pulley when doing the cambelt and waterpump?

Asking because I usually do this on my ancient 1.9 tdi where the alt pulley makes a lot of trouble when seizes. But that cars is on more than 220k miles

 

Edited 14 February, 20215 yr by fr1nklyn

I have my Diesel VRS booked in for a belt and water pump replacement in a couple of weeks with a local VAG independent specialist.

 

As standard for my car they replace the belt, pump and alternator belt. Cost £300.

 

Surprised at the high prices mentioned here, Skoda do this as a fixed repair for £600, was only £550 before the New Year.

 

Someone mentioned above that the 5 year thing is only mentioned for the U.K market. That is the case with certain cars but for mine it is 5 years world wide.

 

 

On 07/02/2021 at 09:51, BATVANVRS said:

 

Have a look at the small writing at the bottom, says petrol & diesel but petrol has a timing chain? Me personally would not change the cambelt at 140,000 miles but rather much sooner especially as this official Skoda document says at 50,000 miles & wouldn't it be better to be safe than sorry  I would change it between the 50,000 - 70,000 mile range or every 5-6 years.

Hmmm, cambelt at 50k??? Without sounding like a broken record on this thread I called Skoda and they told me that it was 140k or 5 years for cambelt changes on the 1.6 and 2.0 tdi engines. I changed mine at 133k but will do it again at 200k. That is pretty much par for the course for most cars. 
 

£184 for an oil change is obscene. It doesn’t even cost me £120 for a FULL service at my local independent garage. They must be charging about £100 in labour. 

1 hour ago, gm73 said:

£184 for an oil change is obscene. It doesn’t even cost me £120 for a FULL service at my local independent garage. They must be charging about £100 in labour. 

 

I agree the price for an oil change service is very high, but type of the oil used is also important. 

3 minutes ago, Vahids said:

 

I agree the price for an oil change service is very high, but type of the oil used is also important. 

 

 

The dealers use Quantum oil it is one of the cheapest options available at £30 for 5 litres and that's even buying retail, trade price is lower.

I've deferred the cam belt change on my 5.5 year old 1.2 TSI which has only done about 25k. I haven't decided yet whether to get it changed this year but I probably will.

1.2 tsi does not have cambelt, it comes with cam chain which does not have service interval AFAIK.

23 minutes ago, Vahids said:

1.2 tsi does not have cambelt, it comes with cam chain which does not have service interval AFAIK.

Mk3 Octavia 1.2 tsi does have a cambelt.

On 21/02/2021 at 18:16, Rodge said:

I've deferred the cam belt change on my 5.5 year old 1.2 TSI which has only done about 25k. I haven't decided yet whether to get it changed this year but I probably will.

Get your mechanic to check the belt condition at the next service. It's doubtful it will need replaced. My wife had a 2003 Renault Scenic which was a 5 year/80k change interval. Her car had only done 7k by the time it was 5 years old so we deferred it until it was ten years old and had done 30k.

I had my timing belt done yesterday on my 2015 diesel 2015 Octavia VRS, the car only has 45k miles but as the car is 6 years old now and for my car the recommended change is 100k or 5 years whichever comes first, for a bit of piece of mind I decided to get it done.

 

They did:

 

Timing Belt 

Water Pump

Alternator Belt

Coolant flush

New water bottle

 

Total cost was £320 inc vat, work was done by a local independent VAG specialist, they advised changing the water bottle to a new version as well due to it having a silicone bag.

 

They were also able to add all of the details of the work done to the Skoda electronic service record. 

 

 

@VahidsRe the type of oil used.

For a 5 year old TSI or TDI on Fixed or Variable servicing it is VW 504 00 / 507 00,  (5w30 FS III) so nothing special or particularly expensive when 5 litres is purchased.

(Newer Spec oil for TSI or TDI getting VW 508 00 / 509 00 can be more expensive, (0w 20 FS IV) but not all dealers use that and some are using 0w 30 FS III.

1 hour ago, purephotoni said:

 

 

Good deal!

On 05/02/2021 at 10:21, Vahids said:

Hello Folks,

I am going to be a new member of Octavia family as I am very close to buy an Octavia MK3 in a couple of days. The car is in very good condition indeed, 2013 with 63K mileage on the clock. However, as far as I know, the cambelt has not been done :-0. The current owner which I found him very honest, says he has asked his mechanic to inspect the cambelt in every service. I know it has been overdue so replacing the cambelt would be the first thing I will do. I just want to know would it be safe to do 100K miles to bring it home from the previous owner place? 

 

Thanks everyone.

Hi, did you get a reply to this? 

There is absolutely no way to know if it is safe unless you have it inspected. It's a gamble - it should be ok but no one will say for certain

53 minutes ago, weyland said:

Hi, did you get a reply to this? 

There is absolutely no way to know if it is safe unless you have it inspected. It's a gamble - it should be ok but no one will say for certain

Yeah, true. I managed to take it home and did the cambelt. Everything is fine now 

Awesome. Enjoy the motor 

On 26/02/2021 at 07:26, purephotoni said:

I had my timing belt done yesterday on my 2015 diesel 2015 Octavia VRS, the car only has 45k miles but as the car is 6 years old now and for my car the recommended change is 100k or 5 years whichever comes first, for a bit of piece of mind I decided to get it done.

 

They did:

 

Timing Belt 

Water Pump

Alternator Belt

Coolant flush

New water bottle

 

Total cost was £320 inc vat, work was done by a local independent VAG specialist, they advised changing the water bottle to a new version as well due to it having a silicone bag.

 

They were also able to add all of the details of the work done to the Skoda electronic service record. 

 

 

That's an excellent price. The best quote I have at the moment is £380 inc vat for belt & pump.

On 02/02/2021 at 09:48, BATVANVRS said:

Thank you, this is extremely helpful.

I cannot understand though how a cambelt would require changing after just 5 years, regardless of mileage. On my VW Golf, it used to be cambelt at 70,000 miles.

 

I have just acquired a 2016 Octavia VRS 230 a few days ago, the only service history I have is that it's had an 'interval service', brake fluid change, and another 'interval service'.

Should I be looking at having the Cambelt soon? Does it give an indication anywhere on the Amundsen?

18 minutes ago, Noms said:

Thank you, this is extremely helpful.

I cannot understand though how a cambelt would require changing after just 5 years, regardless of mileage. On my VW Golf, it used to be cambelt at 70,000 miles.

 

I have just acquired a 2016 Octavia VRS 230 a few days ago, the only service history I have is that it's had an 'interval service', brake fluid change, and another 'interval service'.

Should I be looking at having the Cambelt soon? Does it give an indication anywhere on the Amundsen?

You need to ask Skoda UK why they recommend such an early cambelt change - this has been discussed many times on here without a good technical reason being forthcoming.

 

I had my cambelt changed last year (2015 1.4TSI).

 

No there is no indication on the Amundsen about cambelt, just service intervals without giving any details of content.

I believe the vRS 230 has chain drive camshafts.

9 hours ago, classic said:

I believe the vRS 230 has chain drive camshafts.

When does that require changing?

Hopefully the timing chain never needs replacement. Change the engine oil regularly and hope for the best.

I think it gets loose before failure and that can be noticed in the first 10-20 seconds when you start the car for the first time for the day. Especially when the temperature is below 0.

 

I've read somewhere that the timing chain should be checked every year/20k miles after the 10th year/120k miles. But I can't recall the source of this information.