Car help

Quoted from GYinScuntland

Cambelt goes and it's a write off.

Not in every case.

My Mazda MX5 has a  “safe’ or ‘non interference’ engine. Basically this means the car will just stop and no major damage will occur.

Quoted from Jarmo.Is.God

Got a Skoda Karoq
5 years old in October, currently on 40k miles.

It's on 4 year pcp, 1 year into it.

Skoda just called to say in October, it will need to Cambelt and water pump, for £750

I'm never going to own the car as its PCP, so can i try hold off, of do i need to get it done?

5 years is the recommended interval I think for your car and some will go longer but you should get it done for a fraction of the price at an independent garage.

Defo get it done and don’t push it. Cam belt, pulleys and tensioners. Some mechanics recommend swapping the water pump and/or the auxiliary belt at the same time.

VAG are a bunch of ripoff merchants, not the franchises- the actual manufacturer.  The exact same cambelt that was used on the....I think t was the Audi 4, Seat Exeo, Skoda Octavia etc.....had to be done every 4 years/40k on the VAG engines yet the exact same belt on a toyota was good for 10 years/100,000 miles. I haven;t worked in that cesspool of an industry for 12 years so cant remember the specifics of make/model etc but that was the general issue.  Their warranty procedure is also light years behind some of the japanese makers. One of our techs ran his Passat for 137,000 miles before the cambelt snapped, he got to 70,000 without doing it and just wanted to see how far it could really go.

The real reason they set it to 4 years is because they want you to buy a new car after running yours for 3 years, so giving you a choice of expensive bill on your used car or just trading it in against a new one.

The issue is, if you don't have it done and it does go, it's a new engine which will be 30ish hours labour for a strip and rebuild plus all the parts required or a huge bill for a ready built one and still 12 ish hours to fit. There isn't a good choice really, and not doing it may count as not keeping up the service schedule on your PCP.

If you have to pay yourself I'd recommend looking up local VW specialists rather than main dealer, either they are cheaper and you can support  a local company or you can go back to the main dealer with their price and get them to match it.

To be fair, I only know one person whose cambelt went. He did own an Alfa, however, so perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise!

Quoted from OddShapedBalls

VAG are a bunch of ripoff merchants, not the franchises- the actual manufacturer.  The exact same cambelt that was used on the....I think t was the Audi 4, Seat Exeo, Skoda Octavia etc.....had to be done every 4 years/40k on the VAG engines yet the exact same belt on a toyota was good for 10 years/100,000 miles. I haven;t worked in that cesspool of an industry for 12 years so cant remember the specifics of make/model etc but that was the general issue.  Their warranty procedure is also light years behind some of the japanese makers. One of our techs ran his Passat for 137,000 miles before the cambelt snapped, he got to 70,000 without doing it and just wanted to see how far it could really go.

The real reason they set it to 4 years is because they want you to buy a new car after running yours for 3 years, so giving you a choice of expensive bill on your used car or just trading it in against a new one.

The issue is, if you don't have it done and it does go, it's a new engine which will be 30ish hours labour for a strip and rebuild plus all the parts required or a huge bill for a ready built one and still 12 ish hours to fit. There isn't a good choice really, and not doing it may count as not keeping up the service schedule on your PCP.

If you have to pay yourself I'd recommend looking up local VW specialists rather than main dealer, either they are cheaper and you can support  a local company or you can go back to the main dealer with their price and get them to match it.

I worked for VW Group Purchasing back in the day and all the parts for all the brands were sourced from various manufacturers and they could end up on either a VW, an Audi, a SEAT or a Skoda

The same suppliers also produced their goods for other manufacturers so you're right what you say about VWG setting down their own rules & regs which can differ to the other motor manufacturers

Quoted from FishOutOfWater

I worked for VW Group Purchasing back in the day and all the parts for all the brands were sourced from various manufacturers and they could end up on either a VW, an Audi, a SEAT or a Skoda

The same suppliers also produced their goods for other manufacturers so you're right what you say about VWG setting down their own rules & regs which can differ to the other motor manufacturers

That actually must have been quite an interesting job, in the UK or did you work in Europe?

Quoted from OddShapedBalls

That actually must have been quite an interesting job, in the UK or did you work in Europe?

It was at the end of a 16 year stint with the company

I started off at the VW depot when they opened up in Grimsby, sorting out the shipping of their cars and then was moved down to their UK HQ in M.K.

I carried on arranging the shipping from there until a new MD decided to outsource everything so I was moved on to other non-operational things  ( stock control, forecasting etc which didn't appeal to me too well )

At that time they offered voluntary redundancy so I took that because my main shipping ops job had gone but I then got moved to a new part of the group that was separate from the UK importer which is where I got involved with the sourcing of parts for production

It was interesting but I only stayed for a year because of internal politics.... because I left the UK company and was then reporting back to VW Wolfsburg, HR said I had to go forth

It was at the time that VW had taken on a guy from GM with radical purchasing ideas so the plan was to globally source parts for production from where they could get them and use the same parts across the whole group range

It was working well when I was there, but VWG were very savvy.... a buyer's market so they dictated to suppliers how much they would pay over the a production lifetime of say a Golf / A3 / Leon

I can't tell you what their current policy is but the business is quite cut-throat so I can only assume that component suppliers still have to dance to their tune ( although the guru who came in from GM was eventually charged with industrial espionage after I'd left  - his plans were good for business but his corporate morals left a bit to be desired! )

I've currently got a Seat Ibiza FR. Best car I've ever had to be honest. I did use to have a Volkswagon Polo which was a great little car but had to get rid when they revoked my licence for a year on medical grounds.

When I got my license back I got a Fiat Punto but I had loads of problems with that and would never buy a Fiat again.

As a total  idiot when it comes to cars ....are cam belts checked when you get a service ?????.....my volvo is now  257,000 miles  ....I have had the car 6 years or so it was approx 130,000 when i bought it ....I have never had cam belt changed  but did have it serviced this January (service message comes up every 15k  i usually get it done every 30k)....should I be worried