On 17/11/2021 at 20:02, mydadscar said:

Due to motoring through the Welsh mountains on holiday, I took fright andrecently had my 2011 Octavia 1.6tdi belt replaced at 100.000 miles....My mechanic used a full 'Gates' kit belt and waterpump and charged all in £400.....Skoda price is curentl £600.

 

Wow. Is that the car's first belt change since new?

 

If so - well done! I'm in the same camp of following manufacturer's guidelines as opposed to dealership. That said a dealership in Germany told me their interval on TDI engines is 210,000km or 10 years, twice the length of time they quote here!

On 17/11/2021 at 20:02, mydadscar said:

Skoda price is curentl £600.

I know, nearly choked when enquiring about mine the other day!

11 hours ago, foregonereality said:

 

Wow. Is that the car's first belt change since new?

 

If so - well done! I'm in the same camp of following manufacturer's guidelines as opposed to dealership. That said a dealership in Germany told me their interval on TDI engines is 210,000km or 10 years, twice the length of time they quote here!

Yes the first belt change since new, I’ve owned the car from 11000 miles. My mechanic agreed that the change was now a good move but showed me the old belt on collection and it looked to be in very good condition at 100.000 miles…. It is reassuring to know the new one is in.    I have to say I get a tad fed up trying to evaluate what dealerships tell us, what is needed and how much their prices are.

I rang my local dealership to book a Service and they asked me what was needed.

 

My response was “you tell me, you have the digital service record”. So they proceeded to book me in for a 4 year service.

 

The car has already had it’s 4 year Service and is almost 5 years old and is due it’s cambelt, no mention of this.

 

Needless to say I’m going to cancel and go elsewhere.

1 hour ago, CookieMonster87 said:

I rang my local dealership to book a Service and they asked me what was needed.

 

My response was “you tell me, you have the digital service record”. So they proceeded to book me in for a 4 year service.

 

The car has already had it’s 4 year Service and is almost 5 years old and is due it’s cambelt, no mention of this.

 

Needless to say I’m going to cancel and go elsewhere.

Yes we like to try and stay with the ‘experts’ for our cars but perhaps you can find a garage that specialises in the VW group.

The thing to also consider is what percent of cambelt failures were actually a failure of the tensioner.

On 17/11/2021 at 20:02, mydadscar said:

Due to motoring through the Welsh mountains on holiday, I took fright andrecently had my 2011 Octavia 1.6tdi belt replaced at 100.000 miles....My mechanic used a full 'Gates' kit belt and waterpump and charged all in £400.....Skoda price is curentl £600.

Did you see the old belt, what condition was it in?

2 hours ago, seriesdriver said:

The thing to also consider is what percent of cambelt failures were actually a failure of the tensioner.

That's exactly what happened on my Vauxhall Corsa GSi 16V - the dealer replaced the cambelt but not the tensioner then 2 days later the tensioner failed and 12 of the 16 valves got bent. Fortunately I had taken out the extended warranty so had a new head & valves fitted at no cost to me.

8 hours ago, Suuntobob said:

Did you see the old belt, what condition was it in?

Yes I did see the old belt and it looked to be in good condition but with its age, looks could have been deceiving !

9 hours ago, mydadscar said:

Yes I did see the old belt and it looked to be in good condition but with its age, looks could have been deceiving !

 

This is the important thing to remember. The internal fibres could well be breaking apart and close to failure m the only way to know would be to cut it open. So therefore I change mine when recommended.

2 hours ago, MarkyG82 said:

 

This is the important thing to remember. The internal fibres could well be breaking apart and close to failure m the only way to know would be to cut it open. So therefore I change mine when recommended.

And I presume the belt does quite a few extra miles when the engine is ticking over but not on the move  

Just now, mydadscar said:

And I presume the belt does quite a few extra miles when the engine is ticking over but not on the move  

 

2 hours ago, MarkyG82 said:

 

This is the important thing to remember. The internal fibres could well be breaking apart and close to failure m the only way to know would be to cut it open. So therefore I change mine when recommended.

This may well be the case Marky

6 minutes ago, mydadscar said:

And I presume the belt does quite a few extra miles when the engine is ticking over but not on the move  

 

This may well be the case Marky

 

But then you have stop/start. There are just too many variables to account for.

6 minutes ago, MarkyG82 said:

 

But then you have stop/start. There are just too many variables to account for.

Aargh yes! So safer than sorry to change the belt around the 100.000 mileage........Experience many years ago with a Ford belt that broke and me being un-mechanical, I tried starting the engine.....goodbye top of engine parts, hello AA!

All this aoutside London's Kings Cross Station crossing the traffic lights at 5pm on a saturday.

So I had a T belt change recently....at 310,000km.

I'm pretty sure it was the original.

Looked reasonable still but no idea if the idlers were a bit done. Seemed like a good thing to do at that mileage.

I reckon 300K is a good run.

Bearing in mind my Landcruiser has a 150K interval.