Looking at petrol kodiaq, skoda tells me the CAMBELT is not a service item

Are they belts or chains and surely belts need changing?

They are belts but classed as 'lifetime' so are reinforced and stronger than normal as well as the engines having oval shaped cam gears to reduce load on them.

From memory the service requirements are 240,000km / 150,000mls and then only 'inspect'.

Edited yesterday at 12:591 day by skomaz

10 hours ago, skomaz said:

They are belts but classed as 'lifetime' so are reinforced and stronger than normal as well as the engines having oval shaped cam gears to reduce load on them.

From memory the service requirements are 240,000km / 150,000mls and then only 'inspect'.

Whilst I agree with your comment on what’s officially advised.

I would NEVER leave my cam belt that long, be it a belt or chain 😱

7 hours ago, Trickiejohn said:

Whilst I agree with your comment on what’s officially advised.

I would NEVER leave my cam belt that long, be it a belt or chain 😱

Agreed, 100k/4 years absolute max

You both make fair comment and that's your choice as it's your car. However personal experience, and that of the rest of the world that has had similar regimes (the UK was the only country that didn't follow the VAG guidance for Thier technicians) suggests they can last much longer than 4 years or 100k miles and you would therefore be wasting money changing them.

But as I said... Your car, your choice

Cam belt wear depends a lot on the vehicle usage and quality of the fitted product. My view is that changing early is a form of insurance.

The cost of a catastrophic failure far exceeds the cost of an extra cam belt change.

If you change your cam belt every 50k that’s 1 extra over 140k miles. How many keep their car that long for so many miles?

As I say - your choice - but I've not yet seen any evidence of early failures at all.

I generally keep my cars a long time (usually well over 100k miles - the last two have been 132k and 113k).

I'm sure you are aware but a cambelt change on a TSI Petrol with ACT will not be far short of £1000 given the specialist nature of the kit required to re-time the cams, and other parts of the world haven't been reporting early failures within VAG's latest changed recommendation.

On the other hand - what I have seen is reports of issues AFTER such cambelts have been changed...

But as I noted - each to their own.

Edited 13 hours ago13 hr by skomaz

1 hour ago, skomaz said:

As I say - your choice - but I've not yet seen any evidence of early failures at all.

I generally keep my cars a long time (usually well over 100k miles - the last two have been 132k and 113k).

I'm sure you are aware but a cambelt change on a TSI Petrol with ACT will not be far short of £1000 given the specialist nature of the kit required to re-time the cams, and other parts of the world haven't been reporting early failures within VAG's latest changed recommendation.

On the other hand - what I have seen is reports of issues AFTER such cambelts have been changed...

But as I noted - each to their own.

In fact, I believe I've seen past quotes of £1.2 to £1.4K for the 1.5ACT!

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by Warrior193
correction

Edited 3 hours ago3 hr by lichfielddriver

Any idea when the change from chain to belt occurred, any model spec or year?

@lichfielddriver Are you looking at a 1.5 TSI ACT or a 2.0 TSI, or even back to a 1.4TSI?

50 minutes ago, lichfielddriver said:

Any idea when the change from chain to belt occurred, any model spec or year?

I'm pretty sure the change for smaller engines occurred when EA211 replaced EA111.