Quote for timing belt change for my MK7 Golf TI $2500!

Quote for timing belt change for my MK7 Golf TDI $2500!

So I have 2 options for work on my VW TDI here in town. The dealer, and a well known German repair garage (one reccomended on this forum). The Garage is Werners Garage in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Now, I have worked with the garage for years with my older ALH TDI. They have always beat the dealers quotes and I have always trusted them to do excellent work.

My MK7 Golf TDI is at 105k on the clock. With the timing belt change interval coming up at 130k, I thought I would start asking what I would be looking at price wise to get this done. First call was to Werners Garage. The service guy who I did not recognize spouted out a quote of $2500. Shocked, I asked "why!?". He hung up on me. I called back asking for the manager and he convieniently said the manager was out. I asked how much parts and labor was and he said it was $1900 in parts, the rest was labor.

I then called he dealer who normally I would not trust to do good work on any TDI, just from the horror stories of others on this forum who have taken their TDI's to the VW dealers before and had very bad things happen. Personally I know a guy from work that brought his 2012 Golf TDI to another dealer in Indiana for a timing belt change and after the change he was driving it home and it literally had catastrophic engine failure on his drive home. The dealer then fought with him and in the end did not fix it and he was at a total loss with the car. Back to the plot at hand, the local VW dealer to me quoted me $940 to change the timing belt. This was parts, labor and tax. They said they do warrantly all work and parts they do work on. But again I am reluctant.

I have a little time to figure this out (about 25k), but I wanted to get opinions here to see what others thought.

I thought the CRUA engine timing belt interval was 150k?

Either way, it should not be anywhere near $2500. I know the water pump is expensive (variable displacement), and the aftermarket may not yet have a good source for all the pieces needed to do the job.

It does not look that much different than the CKRA engine, to be honest. 4.5hr labor for the water pump (which requires timing belt removal), so you just need to add up the price of the parts.

Shops change hands and so does management.

Reliable parts for the Gen 1 and Gen 2 CR TB kits were less than $400, granted thats with an aftermarket WP, some places only use OEM waterpumps at more than twice the cost. Does ID parts have a kit for the 2015s yet?

I paid $1100 for my 2010 with what I was told was an OEM WP.

BTW check if the dealer if they even replace the WP, many just inspect it as "that's what the book states", and then you left crossing your fingers it won't start weeping 30K miles later.

From what I have researched it is due at 130k. The waterpump is about $390 and the labor from both places to do the job is 6 hours.

740GLE said:

Shops change hands and so does management.

Reliable parts for the Gen 1 and Gen 2 CR TB kits were less than $400, granted thats with an aftermarket WP, some places only use OEM waterpumps at more than twice the cost. Does ID parts have a kit for the 2015s yet?

I paid $1100 for my 2010 with what I was told was an OEM WP.

BTW check if the dealer if they even replace the WP, many just inspect it as "that's what the book states", and then you left crossing your fingers it won't start weeping 30K miles later.

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Yeah, I didn't recognize the service guy giving the quote, so I think he was new. Granted I have not needed work from their shop in about a year and a half now, but I know the owner has not changed. The garage is literally attached to the owners house, lol.

IDparts do not offer a timing belt kit for the 2015 MK7 TDI's unfortunately.

You were thinking the same as me as initially I thought maybe the dealer was not including the water pump. I called back to verify this and they said it was indeed including a new OEM water pump with the quote of $940.

To my knowledge VW has no listed change interval for the CRUA timing belt. It's a "lifetime" belt. I suspect at some point they'll introduce a service interval, but AFAIK right now there isn't one.

If someone knows of one please share where VW has it documented, and we'll get a kit together!

I have heard "lifetime" too. Alldata shows no service interval. I suspect 150k is probably a reasonable one, unless the car does not get driven much then time factors in.

We used to service a fleet that had a BUNCH of '13 and '14 Sportwagons, and their management company refused to do timing belts (those had a 120k interval). Never saw one with an issue, and some were in excess of 180k miles already when they were replaced with a fleet of Captivas... which ironically all have nice sooty rear ends and are keeping us busy with all the stuff that breaks. Seriously awful, awful vehicles.

On the Canadian VW website they have maintenance schedules, and for the 2015 Golf TDI they list "Timing Belt Check/Replacement" at 180,000km.

That's about 112,000 miles.

I think the key word there is "check".

You could drive down to St. Louis and back on a tank of fuel, I'm sure oilhammer would be happy to help out


There's a guy on vortex who went 240K on the original belt in his 2013, car is now sitting awaiting it's fate. Serp belt was also original and showed no signs of cracking or threads but was starting to wear. He has a friend with similar mileage. Obvious Note: Proceed with caution if trying this at home.

This is a 2015 2.0 CRUA TDI engine. They just released these in 2015 (at least for the US), and unfortunately they were the last year of them also as VW stopped making diesels for the US in 2015. I got the car and it has a lot of miles for only being 2.5 years old, so there's probably just not many people ready for it here in the states.

I have seen also that the belt has a lifetime warranty which from what I have researched ends up being the lifetime of it until it breaks and destroys the engine on its way. From what I have read, researched and what the VW say, the interval is at 130,000 miles.

The dealer said that if I follow through and get the extended warranty with "the fix" for the dieselgate stuff, that if it were to fail on the factory belt before 130k that it would be covered under warranty, but not if it fails after that without having it done.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

I think the key word there is "check".

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I have to wonder if manufacturers are becoming afraid to specify a timing-belt change interval because they know it turns some consumers off.

Imagine your average consumer, John Smith. He doesn't know the difference between a Camry and a Maytag. They look the same, they are equally boring, and they just work forever with no maintenance. Then try to sell him some other type of car that needs a $1000 timing belt every few years. He's going to drive off the lot in a shiny white Maytag.

A Mk4 TDI for example has a 100,000 mile timing belt change interval. You change it because it might fail, not because it will for sure. Looking at it doesn't really help you to predict if it needs changing. It can look perfect when you check it, and 5,000 miles later it might unexpectedly fail. So, it's replaced at an interval where the chance of it failing is very low.

Are the belts in a Mk7 made better? Is there some reason why they wouldn't fail, while a Mk4 belt might fail?

(I'm all for not changing it in the Mk7, if there's a good reason why it can be ignored. It's a PITA and I don't want to do it, if it really can be ignored, but I tend to think it should be changed for the same reason that it should be changed on any car in history.)

Everything mechanical fails at some point. Nothing will change my mind on that. The simple fact that if your timing belt fails, so does your motor makes a lot more sense to just do it when the dealer says and not have to worry about it.

The answer is only as far away as your owners manual. From the maintenance booklet:


Guess we'll start working on building a timing belt kit.

^ Well that's almost 210,000km. If that's the timing belt interval specified in the US, then we might just ignore what the Canadian VW website says. The car didn't come with a maintenance schedule booklet in Canada. Either the dealer forgot to include it, or they left it out due to having a bunch of French manuals to print as well.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

The answer is only as far away as your owners manual. From the maintenance booklet:

Guess we'll start working on building a timing belt kit.

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There ya go. 130k.

Thanks for getting one coming to us. How long do you suspect it will take to get on the market.

I think its the drive belt for the oil pump that has a "lifetime"interval.
So, what does anyone think about swapping out that oil pump drive belt during timing belt job? Its tucked in here behind the timing belt. Both are oil-bath belts, so I would think it would offer some peace of mind to change out that one too while doing the timing belt.

Tomorrow I'll investigate what's available. Since this engine has been in continuous service in Europe since 2014 I'm hoping the aftermarket (INA, Litens, Continental) has started stocking these items. Getting them here may be another story.

CALL911 said:

You were thinking the same as me as initially I thought maybe the dealer was not including the water pump. I called back to verify this and they said it was indeed including a new OEM water pump with the quote of $940.

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So $450 for the WP and $940 for the entire job? Must be just replacing the belt and WP, no other parts, sounds about par with reducing maintenance costs.

Mike_04GolfTDI said:

Imagine your average consumer, John Smith. He doesn't know the difference between a Camry and a Maytag. They look the same, they are equally boring, and they just work forever with no maintenance. Then try to sell him some other type of car that needs a $1000 timing belt every few years. He's going to drive off the lot in a shiny white Maytag.

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Then why is VW selling fists full of DSG transmissions? and now fists full of 4Mo Sportwagens?

I'd have to wager dollar to donuts, more than 3/4 of first buyers of the DSG transmission don't ask what its gonna cost every 40K? and they either don't do it or are pissed at VW. Add on top of that haldex maintenance at the same interval gets pretty pricey.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

The answer is only as far away as your owners manual. From the maintenance booklet:

Guess we'll start working on building a timing belt kit.

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Ha, ha, ha.
Huge discussion, anything to avoid RTFM.

Working on parts quotes today. Good news is the water pump is electric, not driven by the belt. So I doubt it's part of the belt service.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

Working on parts quotes today. Good news is the water pump is electric, not driven by the belt. So I doubt it's part of the belt service.

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The water pump is controlled electronically, but it is driven by the belt.

Just figured that out. What's odd is the roller is smooth, so we're thinking it's driving by the back side of the belt. Haven't seen that before on a VW.

Yes, driven by the back side of the belt, variable displacement. And I have already seen a few fail (under warranty) which leads me to believe a lot of the newer engines will need them replaced before the belt interval even hits.

Do you think you have to remove the front engine mount to replace the belt? Looks like it to us.

Or at least to do the tensioner. Personally I would want the bracket out of the way anyway to get plenty of room to do the job. I hate working around things if I do not have to.

It looks mostly like the previous CR engines except that there is no lower (large) roller. That task is instead done by the water pump itself, there is no need for the large deflection roller.

$390 for just the waterpump?

We shipped a few of these sets to our high mileage US customers. These are priced at $375 shipped, and that's including INA timingbelt set and OEM VW waterpump.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

Do you think you have to remove the front engine mount to replace the belt? Looks like it to us.

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Wonderful you guys are looking into this!!!
Thank you Indigo!
Yes, one leg of the bracket is inside the belt loop, so it must be removed.
The Camshaft and HPFP sprockets no longer have the 3 TTY bolts, rather a single nut on HPFP and one large center bolt and one locking bolt on the Cam.
The belt is also 25 mm wide, 5mm narrower than the previous 30mm 2.0CR belt. Like Brian said, also a bit simpler roller train!
We need Greengeeker and team to develop a DIY tutorial!!
Great work!!
Andrew

Frans said:

$390 for just the waterpump?

We shipped a few of these sets to our high mileage US customers. These are priced at $375 shipped, and that's including INA timingbelt set and OEM VW waterpump.

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Hey, Peter. It looks like you and Frans need to talk...