Serpentine belt tensioner

spiceredwagon

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2007
Location
Edmonton
TDI
06 wagon
Did I get a patch of bad luck or have other people had bad tensioners.
I replaced a tensioner that flunked out of province inspection, 1200km later the new one is leaking oil. It cost $150.00 cdn made in Slovakia supposed to be the genuine VW product. Do made in China tensioners last longer?
 

warrenm626

Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2008
Location
kansas
TDI
2005 Passat, 2001 Jetta
I also had a Serpintine tensioner go bad that was purchased from a VW dealer & supposed to replace original equip part. It ran only 18K miles & lost the Serpintine belt for the alt/Power steering. It also damaged the timing belt & possibly valves. i have it in my shop right now inspecting the damages. I don't know about chinese tensioners (sorry).
 

spiceredwagon

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2007
Location
Edmonton
TDI
06 wagon
KC the pulley is locked up. I have a new one because it put up the alternator workshop code once.
So how do other manufacturers that have no free wheeling pulley get their tensioners to survive?
 

KCTDI

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2002
Location
Kingdom City, Missouri
TDI
2014 Touareg
Good question. Perhaps oilhammer could shed light on this subject for us? Surely Volkswagen wouldn't have used a lower quality tensioner? :)
 

roadhard1960

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2004
Location
Covington, Ga.
TDI
2003 Jetta wagon GLS 5 speed
In the US we do not have many choices for diesel cars the past 20 years. You folks over in the UK at least can look under the hood of a Honda and see a diesel. VW used those pulleys to deal with the violent acceleration and deceleration of the little 4 cylinder. I wonder if the big 6 and v8 diesels popular in US trucks have the same characteristics.

I replaced my tensioner but not because of a leak but I was chasing a squeek and the bearing was bad on that pulley. The squeek was somewhere else but I can click that part off as a scheduled replacement for another few years.
 
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