Oil leaking, timing belt wear and crappy mileage

So I’m getting some oil leaking and I can’t for the life of me get my mileage up over 45 on my 5sp manual TDI Wagon. She has 214,000 miles on it. I changed the timing belt at 130,000 miles.

Here are a couple of pics of my oil leak:








And I’m getting this kind of wear on my timing belt.



I’m not sure how to address my crappy gas mileage? I recently replaced the MAF sensor and that helped a little. I did the intake manifold less than 30k ago and last summer redid the EGR. Here is what the intake looked like when I did the EGR:



Could it be that the actual head for the intake needs to be cleaned out?

THanks for any help

That's not your timing belt. Just your accessory belt. You need to check that the tensioner is tight and that the alternator pulley (a one way bearing) is not stuck.


Leak is common, just replace/reseal.

Definitely get intake manifold cleaned.


Look into catching up any other deferred maintenance like fuel filter and air filter as well.

I honestly hope that you didn't change just the accessory belt at 130k miles.


For mileage issues, use VCDS to check timing and IQ settings.

Enabled said:

I honestly hope that you didn't change just the accessory belt at 130k miles.


For mileage issues, use VCDS to check timing and IQ settings.

Click to expand...

No, when I bought the car with 130k on it I had Oldpoopie from here on the forum do a complete timing belt change.

Enabled said:

That's not your timing belt. Just your accessory belt. You need to check that the tensioner is tight and that the alternator pulley (a one way bearing) is not stuck.


Leak is common, just replace/reseal.

Definitely get intake manifold cleaned.


Look into catching up any other deferred maintenance like fuel filter and air filter as well.

Click to expand...

Would it be worth doing the intake head while doing the intake manifold?

Depends how bad it is in the intake ports and near valves. It adds a higher degree of complexity to clean inside the head.

You are coming up on another timing belt change so why not do everything at once?

Hard to get more than 45 miles per gallon with these ALH wagons

Things that ding mileage:

larger (wider) tires

cross-bars on roof rack

lots of heavy stuff in the car (tools, etc)

Some seasonal blends of fuel also limit mileage, as well as long mountain grades.

A 6 speed swap would help if you are driving fast over long distances

You have to say what your driving conditions are before anyone can readily state whether that's a healthy FE.

45mpg is about the bottom of what I have gotten with any of my Golfs. And that really only happened once and was early on after I'd bought my car; clogged intake.

Wife's car's FE had dropped almost 2mpg and that was due to a sticking front brake caliper (crap parts and labor by the PO). Usually it's rears that are prone to sticking. Regardless, check for proper brake operation. These engines barely flinch about locking up brakes- hard to tell other than by monitoring FE (or visual inspection or hitting wheels with a thermal gun).

Absolutely no reason why a 5spd wagon cannot get 50mpg given supportive driving conditions. I've had my car for 39 months now and over that entire time (and all the work, performance testing and post-work testing) and 50k miles it has averaged 50.4mpg: we drive mostly highway. Wife's car is similar, though it's racked up 10k more miles, and has averaged 49.8 mpg (had that caliper not been sticking I'm sure that it would be 50+mpg). This isn't a matter of whether they CAN get this FE over the course of one tank, no, they can do it tank after tank: we've done that now for over 111k combined miles (add in another 10k on or spare Golf, which is averaging 51.4 mpg). Larger injectors and tunes in all our cars. I drive my car briskly. Wagons, I've been told, can best Golfs in FE (supposedly better aerodynamics? roof racks, however, yes, those will penalize).