[tenpennies]

Hi All,
I'm new to the Audi Forum and was wondering if anyone has had any experiences with the Audi TT and replacement of the timing belt. I've heard mixed suggestions on when it should be changed. The Audi factory manual suggests 80k miles, but I've heard many say that 60k is the time to do it. I understand that this may vary depending on how hard you are driving the car. In my case, my TT has 61k miles on it and I've never driven it hard. Any suggestions or advice on when it should be done?? The cost is about $950 to change out the belt, tensioners and water pump so if I can hold off for another 15-20k miles it would be a nice option.

Thanks much!

 

[Kelvin]

:57:
Hi tenpennies,

Welcome to the forum. I dont think that you are going to get a definitive answer to this because it is one of those items that is pretty critical and so most people are willing to change it sooner to avoid the risk of it failing and causing significantly more damage than its value. My general opinion is that Audi would recommend the change long before its determined lifespan and so the book replacement is probably a good guideline. Of course there is always the chance it may fail early but I believe that is the exception rather than the rule. Remember that experiences noted in any forum are a very small sample of the overall population and problems highlighted here tend to carry alot more emphasis.
:wacko:
If it is worrying you then perhaps for your own peace of mind when driving the car, it would be a good idea to change it earlier rather than later but consider a compromise around 70K to 75K as you did.

 

[cheesemax]

Hey tenpennies,

Here is my experience with my a4. I was thinking I should look into having the belt replaced (at aroung 100K kms.) but was putting it off. Got back from a business trip and my wife told me that the car was making a funny noise. I turned it over and immediately knew something was very wrong. Without thinking I drove it at a crawl ovet to my local mechanic. He immediately identified the problem, broken tensioner. Luckily the belt had not skipped out of position and the engine was undamaged. Dodged a $3000 bullet. Don't wait. Get it done.