On 04 July 2023 VAG in the UK issued a notice cancelling the 5 year cam belt change interval. The new interval is now 15 years or 180,000 miles. It states that dealers should only use the intervals shown on ElsaPro (the VAG online manual). VAG factories never had a 5 years interval for the post 2013 TSi engines of the new design, it was simply profiteering by VAG UK on behalf of their dealers. I remember seeing it in writing in the Golf Mk7 brochure that the Conti belt was fitted for the life of the engine.

An example of the profiteering dealers tried the dealer we bought the 2013 Leon from insisted the belt needed changing at 3 years or 30,000 miles. I contacted Seat UK who sent me a long e-mail giving their official position (as of 2013) that it was basically inspect annually from 50,000 miles or 5 years but only replace if the belt shows deterioration. Regardless of condition they said replace after 120,000 miles or 10 years. Better than the dealer but still not the official VAG interval.

We were lucky, our Fabia was 5 years old in April 2023 but due to its lower than average mileage I decided to leave it a year fully expecting no issues plus I also expected to PX the car before April 2024 (we did in March 2024).

We had no issues and when we were looking at deals not a single garage asked about the cam belt which kind of suggested they are well aware of the new intervals.

Basically they are lasting longer than the cars now unless you do mega mileage.

Since the turn of the century they should last the life of the car. Many years ago I was derided (with abusive language from one poster) for ignoring the belt change recommendation on our Mk1 Focus (10yrs and 100,000 miles). It went to the scr@pyard at 21yrs old and 160,000miles with the original belt. Its predecessor, a Passat 2.0GL, still had the original belt at 240,000 miles (although I did have to change the whining stiff tensioner pulley at about 140,000 before it seized and fried the belt).

Decent modern (21st century) belts (the early poor quality DAYCO crumblers in PSA's 1.2 puretech being a notable exception) cause no problems as long as the things they drive don't break or seize. I think possibly more damage has been done to engines by unnecessarily changing good quality original belts than if they had been left well alone. AFAIK the disgraceful profiteering by UK garages mentioned above has never been acknowledged officially. For modern BIO engines it is particularly important that the correct spec oil is used. I just don't trust garages to do this, so I always change the oil in Mrs F's Peugeot 1.2 puretech myself. Does anyone check whether the type of oil written on the service record - if indeed they bother to record it - is the same as the oil which actually went in the engine? A jug of cheapo 0-30 out of the generic stock barrel is just not good enough for the belt in a BIO engine.