was in DM Keith today (31/07/07):

Service notice was displayed on desk:

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Important Information Regarding ALL Skoda Vehicles:

An amendment has been made regarding the length of Timing Belt change intervals on all Skoda vehicles.

The new requirement set by Skoda UK states all vehicles must have the Timing Belt changed every 4 years irrespective of the mileage.

Our service team will be happy to provide you with further details.

Thank You

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and if you don't believe me; check the attachment! (i took a pic on my phone)

Doesn't really surprise me as most belts have a milage and age limit and should be changed when one of them occurs regardless (the belts age so a 30,000 miler on a 7 year old car has more chance of breaking that a 60,000 miler on a 5 year old car)

I think that's fairly common knowledge on here already, but thanks for the heads-up all the same!

My car will be hitting 60k miles in about 6 months time. It is a 04 Octavia RS (registered in August 2004). Does this mean that I could leave doing the timing belt and ancillary bits until it was 4 years old with approx. 80k miles with reasonable confidence?

Nope....60K or 4 years.....you WILL need the water pump at the same time....only a few quid extra but will save you having to fork out the same again a few K's after as they pretty much disintegrate at around 60K and changing them is the same labour as doing the cambelt