First timing belt change at 81K miles. Belt fine?

I thought I had a 100K mile timing belt in my stock 2001 Golf TDI. Reading the forum on Wednesday made it unclear to me how long my belt should last, but many seem to think it is 60K miles.

This caused me a bit of panic since I was already at 81K miles. I scheduled my timing change with my local mechanic for the next day.

I’m not recommending that people wait as long as I did, but FWIW, the old belt looks fine to me. It looks no different than the new belt – no worn edges on the sides or on any of the inner square steps. The rubber on the older belt is a little less supple than the new one, but much less than what you might expect from four year old rubber. If you force bend the old belt with a lot of arm strength to extreme limits, you do see the starting signs of some scaling. But on the whole the belt looked MUCH better than the forum panic had me expecting.

In full disclosure, my local mechanic said “Well maybe it would have started cracking more in the cold of winter, but yeah, it would have made it to at least then.”

Your mileage may vary. I wanted to pass this along in case anyone else panics thinking their belt would be as frayed as some of the pictures I saw here (as I feared).

It is reasonable to think that belt change intervals handed out by the manufacturer are based on testing/experience of the life span of the components. If the manufacturer recommends that a belt be changed after 60k miles, it suggests that the vast majority of belt systems makes it to that mark. There will be a small percentage of belts that explode before that and there will be a sizeable group that runs well beyond the recommended cutoff mark.

All your experience tells you is that you were the lucky owner of a belt system belonging to the latter category.

I am sure that there are TDIs out there, owned by oblivious people that have been on their factory belts forever and are still running.

It is all about risk and probability of an event to occur.



For my fiancees Dodge Avenger 2.0, the timing belt interval (includes cam shaft seals) is 140k km. I had no inclination to work outside in the winter and decided to let it go till the spring. At 148k, a cam shaft seal blew, spewing oil all over the place (including the timing belt) and I had to pay to get the work done before xmas. So much for "leeway".

It's not only the belt that is supposed to be replaced at the indicated intervals. The whole system is subject to wear... the rollers, tensioner, and water pump. With the updated parts designed for 100,000 mile lifespans, it is recommended that the everything in the belt pathway be replaced, as then there are less likely to be unpleasant suprises halfway through the anticipated wear life.

I hope your mechanic used 2003 model year parts, and replaced the needed single-use bolts...

Yuri.

Re: First timing belt change at 81K miles. Belt fi

read on the probabilities of your timing belt exploding:
http://www.robertniles.com/stats/stdev.shtml
to get a better understanding, why you should observe the
manufacturers recommendations rather than the good looks of
your sweet little timing belt.

I thought I had a 100K mile timing belt in my stock 2001 Golf TDI. Reading the forum on Wednesday made it unclear to me how long my belt should last, but many seem to think it is 60K miles.

This caused me a bit of panic since I was already at 81K miles.

Click to expand...

Some 2001 TDIs had timing belts rated for 80k miles. Check the build-date on the driver's-side B-pillar. If April 2001 or later, you had one of the extended-life belts. March 2001, maybe. February or earlier, you were just damn lucky.

The old-style TBs were smooth on the outer skin, the newer ones rougher. Did the replacement look very much like the one you removed?

Yes, the new and old belts looked almost identical.

I probably did have the 80K version...