Disaster averted!

[Mozambiquer]

Today my dad messaged me, he was getting ready to go somewhere with my sister's 1999 Jetta tdi, and before he even let out the clutch to back up, it died on him, and it would not restart. So, he just drove his truck instead, but he wanted me to look at it. I got there and he had pulled the upper timing belt cover off, but the timing belt was still there. I cranked it and it fired up right away. I then looked at the engine while it was running and noticed something on the timing belt. I shut it off and turned it over so I could see it... Yikes! The timing belt is tearing! It has only 40k and 4 years on the belt, so I'm not sure what caused it, but thankfully I saw it and will get it replaced before it even gets started again.
Has anyone else seen this happen? I'm not sure what could have caused it. It's not a knockoff belt, it's a continental, and all the pulleys and etc were replaced at the same time.

Looming disaster!

• Mozambiquer
• Sep 19, 2020

 

[csstevej]

Looks like something is rubbing on it.
Nice catch though !!!!

 

[Rrusse11]

You need to buy a lottery ticket!

 

[Tdijarhead]

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forums.tdiclub.com

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I had a foreign object destroy my belt stripped about 8” of teeth and allowed valves to hit pistons. I never did find out what that object was I think it was a small stone that was ground up. There was no sign of anything metal, as I went through the fluff with a magnet.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

What brand belt and kit? All rollers replaced? Could be a failing roller bearing killed the belt.

 

[jettawreck]

I would vote for the "foreign object" as mentioned getting under the belt and doing the damage but only when you remove it and check all the idler/rollers will you know. A "defective" belt is very rare.

 

[Tdijarhead]

I’ll be interested to see what he finds.

 

[Genesis]

I would go buy a few Powerball tickets. With your luck there's a decent crack at you hitting it.

 

[PakProtector]

OK, so there are two things; one that the beast stalled, and two that you found that nick. IFF it has not jumped timing and touched something, why should it stall? In any case good luck wid the repairs.
cheers,
Douglas

 

[Nero Morg]

I'm assuming whatever caused the belt to tear maybe wedged in somewhere tight like at the oil pump housing and the crank, causing it to mechanically stall, then the starter forced the engine over, thus cutting that chip in the belt.

 

[Mozambiquer]

I doubt that the stalling had anything to do with the belt, because nothing seemed wrong when I got there. It has had immobilizer problems previously, so I suspect that could be the problem. Not sure, but I will replace the belt before any further diagnosis that would involve running the engine. The belt has a very odd issue that I've not ever seen before, it appears to have thicker sections on the outside edge around the belt, I'll have to take photos to explain.
IBW asked where the belt was from. I believe it was from rock auto? Either that or ID parts. I'll have to look back in the history. It used to be my car, and I put the timing belt on four years ago. I know that all rollers were replaced as well as the water pump.
It had the cover installed, but it could still be possible to get a foreign object. I foresee that I'll be pulling it apart soon.

 

[adjat84th]

I had a water pump bolt back out, fell to the bottom between the belt and lower timing cover, and just rubbed on the belt evenly. Was making a slight wine that really sounded like the turbo was done, except for the speed matched engine RPMs vs turbo shaft speed.
No coolant was leaking either with only two bolts, but I imagine that would not have lasted long.

 

[Mozambiquer]

Got a new timing belt set ordered along with all the bolts and etc. I'll probably be pulling it apart Saturday.

 

[Mozambiquer]

So, I put a new belt in Saturday and found the culprit... I am SOO glad I didn't try to drive it to the shop! We have a rollback and so I picked it up and brought it over to the shop. I pulled it apart and found that the small idler pulley down below the water pump was locked up tight! Cam to crank timing jumped one or two notches, thankfully not enough for piston to valve contact! I put a brand new belt and kit on. I also realize that the continental timing belt kits must not have the best idler pulley quality. This time it has INA pulleys. My sister said the car runs way better than it had, which I am glad to hear!

 

[csstevej]

Thanks for the follow up and congrats on the find.......I’d go buy some lottery tickets if I was you ; )

 

[BobnOH]

............................................................... I put a brand new belt and kit on. I also realize that the continental timing belt kits must not have the best idler pulley quality. This time it has INA pulleys. ..........................................

Believe those kits are put together by the vendor, not the belt manufacturer.

 

[Mozambiquer]

Believe those kits are put together by the vendor, not the belt manufacturer.

This one was a rock auto one, Continental brand. If you get it from ID parts or fcp euro or whatever, those ones are assembled by the vendor.

 

[Genesis]

The problem with all the "package Chineesium parts" folks (NOT the TDI-specific folks like ID) is that the way they hit the price-point is the "other things" in the box. Yet one of those "other things" that fails will screw you just as hard as a belt being made by "Prothe custom designs"; they either don't know this or don't care. Every single item under that timing belt cover has to perform over the entire life cycle of the belt, "or else."

 

[Dhawk12]

Anyone in the states started seeing Litens tensioners made in Romania? The last 3 I have gotten from reputable Canadian vendors have all been made there and not in Canada. It seems Litens shifted production.

 

[Mozambiquer]

Anyone in the states started seeing Litens tensioners made in Romania? The last 3 I have gotten from reputable Canadian vendors have all been made there and not in Canada. It seems Litens shifted production.

I think the litens tensioner I got was from Romania.

 

[Mozambiquer]

The problem with all the "package Chineesium parts" folks (NOT the TDI-specific folks like ID) is that the way they hit the price-point is the "other things" in the box. Yet one of those "other things" that fails will screw you just as hard as a belt being made by "Prothe custom designs"; they either don't know this or don't care. Every single item under that timing belt cover has to perform over the entire life cycle of the belt, "or else."

Yup, I realized I made the assumption that since Continental made good belts, they were the one to get. I think the idlers were NTN brand, which generally seems to be decent, as far as bearings go, but now I'm going to insist on the quality parts!

 

[KrashDH]

The problem with all the "package Chineesium parts" folks (NOT the TDI-specific folks like ID) is that the way they hit the price-point is the "other things" in the box. Yet one of those "other things" that fails will screw you just as hard as a belt being made by "Prothe custom designs"; they either don't know this or don't care. Every single item under that timing belt cover has to perform over the entire life cycle of the belt, "or else."

Or it's just luck of the draw. I've had 2 waterpumps fail prematurely in the 100k kits by reputable vendors on here. One the pump shaft snapped at 65k miles and luckily no damage happened . The 2nd TB kit waterpump failed due to a leaking seal around 50k...

 

[Genesis]

I had a water pump seal fail as well at ~75k. It didn't snap but it started leaking real good, forcing an early change of the components in the timing system. It was obviously not worth all that work to just do the pump with only ~20k left on the rest of the components.

 

[TornadoRed]

I also realize that the continental timing belt kits must not have the best idler pulley quality. This time it has INA pulleys.

INA pulleys, Litens tensioner. Conti, Gates, or Dayco TB. Accept no substitutes.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

Conti and Gates kits use INA/Litens tensioners, same as INA boxed. Rollers are from GMB, which we've found are every bit as good as INA. For all we know the actual bearings could be from the same manufacturer. I've personally used Gates kits for my MKIV TDIs for several years (two TB changes on IBW, two on my son's Golf, one on my other son's Jetta, one on my '99.5 Golf) and they've all been fine. Things will happen: I've heard of a number of bearing failures on CR TDIs after 50-70K miles, for example. No matter what parts you use it's important to be somewhat attentive to the car and potential problems.