Octavia TDI Elegance 2003 117,000 miles

The auxilary belt tensioner has snapped it's mount off at the block and then damaged the belt and cut through the coolant pipes. Has anyone heard of the tension snapping it's mount before or is this just a freak?

Had one snap off at the damper mount. Out of the two that we have replaced both times on the same bolt the thread has been stripped, we had to drill the hole in the new tensioner and re-tap the thread to accomoadate a slightly larger bolt.

When was the belt last changed?

The belt was within the recommended time/distance. I don't see how an old belt would cause the tensioner to snap the mount of the block, it's not a flimsy piece of metal, its a casted mount! Do you know how the belt is tensioned. Could it be that the tie rod was over pressured and the belt didn't give and so the weakest link was the mount?

Dont know about the octavia, but on my Ford commuter hack its good practice to replace the tensioners at the same time as the belt. The tensioners even come in the kit for the belt.

On bought the car a month ago and the belt and tension are fine so it isn't a fault with them it's the mount cast into the block thats the failure point, the belts only knacker as the tensioner mount fell onto it. Don't know how the garage will repair the block!

Had the same happen on my Superb when it only had 20k on the clock, so definately not due to needing the belt/tensioner pulleys etc changing.

Dont know how they fixed it, was obviously still under warranty back then.

It's fixed. The mount where the tensioner attaches to the block is a bracket on the block so they just replace that and all is well (obviously changed the belt, tensioner and coolant pipes). Dealer said he had never seen it before and had no idea why it had happened. The total bill would have been

Dont know about the octavia, but on my Ford commuter hack its good practice to replace the tensioners at the same time as the belt. The tensioners even come in the kit for the belt.

Does with the cambelt, not normally the aux belt though.

I've got a octavia tdi 110 the same as yours i've been told its a common fault with them i've had 3 go up to now all at the weak point on the bracket for the damper, The cheapest 1 i found was from g.s.f in sheffield for

You've had 3 go because you have treated the symptom every time and not the cause of the problem.

The alternator pulley has a clutch in it which allows it to freewheel in one direction. I'll bet that your alternator pulley is locked solid, which is causing your belt tensioners to snap.