PREMATURE FAILURES! Timing belt tensioners causing failures!

It's really too bad when you offer to help someone, look up an invoice from over 3 years/>80K miles ago, locate parts receipt for that invoice, look up part number, specific brand, in order to help someone possibly spread the word to the TDI community of a possible defective tensioner out there, only to find out that the person you are helping is trying to throw you under the bus, for something that is just not true.

Graf Water Pump = NOT Chinese
FEQ Timing Belt Tensioner = NOT Chinese, nor a cheap brand. Definitely not $6.00. But I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.






I just don't get some people sometimes... I'll let the text speak for the rest...

FEQ, or "First Equipment Quality" is most certainly junk. And most likely IS from China. That is Worldpac's cheapo line, and is horrible no matter what it is.

BTW, Worldpac is currently selling the FEQ brand tensioner for the AHU engine for a whole $23. The SKF brand one is $36, which is clearly in the picture an OEM level one because it says "Litens" on the back. So, for a difference of $13, you get a destroyed engine. Nice....

Man... soap opera themes are playing loud in this thread.

Moral of the story - don't use Chinese junk parts - mmmkay?

Just how does one pronounce "FEQ", anyway?....

Yeah, buddy, I finished the work. Your engine is totally FEQed now!

408TDIGUY said:

It's really too bad when you offer to help someone, look up an invoice from over 3 years/>80K miles ago, locate parts receipt for that invoice, look up part number, specific brand, in order to help someone possibly spread the word to the TDI community of a possible defective tensioner out there, only to find out that the person you are helping is trying to throw you under the bus, for something that is just not true.

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Thanks for posting another side of the story to this thread. You are doing good. It's a tough business and most of the people couldn't run a shop if they had to.

oilhammer said:

FEQ, or "First Equipment Quality" is most certainly junk. And most likely IS from China. That is Worldpac's cheapo line, and is horrible no matter what it is.

BTW, Worldpac is currently selling the FEQ brand tensioner for the AHU engine for a whole $23. The SKF brand one is $36, which is clearly in the picture an OEM level one because it says "Litens" on the back. So, for a difference of $13, you get a destroyed engine. Nice....

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I stand corrected oilhammer. Thank you for the clarification. I had no idea. Ive never had a problem before but if this brand comes my way again I will steer clear.

Clatta said:

Thanks for posting another side of the story to this thread. You are doing good. It's a tough business and most of the people couldn't run a shop if they had to.

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Clatta,
Thank you. I do my best to treat every car as if its my own.

Thanks for the vital info, Frankencar!

I appreciate it.

The SKF tensioner (http://www.autohausaz.com/pn/028109243F) has a metal pulley.
Plastic pullies are probably cheaper. The Litens and other tensioners use plastic without problems.
Seeing that the toothed side of the belt runs on metal sprockets, running the smooth side on a metal roller shouldn't cause problems.
Whatt'ya think?

clyde said:

The SKF tensioner (http://www.autohausaz.com/pn/028109243F) has a metal pulley.
Plastic pullies are probably cheaper. The Litens and other tensioners use plastic without problems.
Seeing that the toothed side of the belt runs on metal sprockets, running the smooth side on a metal roller shouldn't cause problems.
Whatt'ya think?

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The SKF tensioner uses a plastic pulley as well, in fact if you buy that SKF tensioner you linked to above you get a Litens tensioner in an SKF box.

Steve

I have that tensioner, good thing I broke it pulling my engine on a time crisis and bought a good one.... Lol

IndigoBlueWagon said:

VW gets its tensioners from Litens. Belts are from Gates or Continental, occasonally Dayco. Genuine VW is nice, but don't assume it means VW made it. Our Gates kit has the same components from the same manufacturers.

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...Just bought your TB kit for my 'new' '02 Jetta Wagon.

Steve Addy said:

The SKF tensioner uses a plastic pulley as well, in fact if you buy that SKF tensioner you linked to above you get a Litens tensioner in an SKF box.

Steve

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My INA one is plastic too.

Digital Corpus said:

My INA one is plastic too.

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I think they're all plastic now DC. I have to admit that I've never seen a TDI tensioner roller that didn't have a plastic pulley on it.

Steve

I was reaffirming the point

Digital Corpus said:

I was reaffirming the point

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Yeah, I was just agreeing with you, not questioning it. I guess I didn't make that clear enough.

Steve