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Cam pain

I have a Skoda Octavia and a friend has a Fabia. We have been informed by our dealer that Skoda recommend that cambelts should be changed every four years, regardless of mileage. I would question the need for this, which seems an unreasonable imposition both financially and technically. It would appear that this applies to all cars from V.W. Do you think that this a reasonable situation or would you advise car owners to ignore it?

Asked on 25 April 2009 by

Answered by Honest John
Obviously I'm not going to question it because if I tell you it's
unreasonable, and your timing belt comes off or snaps at 4 years 6 months, you're going to blame me. What happened was that VAG unwisely specified plastic/nylon pulleys for its 1.4 and 1.6 16v petrol engines and these started disintegrating soon after 4 years old throwing off the belts. I led a campaign against VAG over this. VW's response was the edict that all belts now need to be replaced at 4 years whether they were previously lasting 4 years and 40k miles, 4 years and 60k miles or 6 years and 60k miles.
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