oh dear

[Prash]

Well...just had to have my car towed back home as it looks like the toothed belt/toothed belt tensioner has had enough and completely given up. Was doing 25mph up a small incline and a sudden grinding sound accompanied by total loss of power, thought oh no clutch has gone as I can't engage gears, but tried to start the engine and again a grinding coming for the camshafts, oh dear. The belt and tensioner weren't due to be replaced for another 10,000 miles, no warning at all at was given that the belt was about to give, the car felt slighty more sluggish than I expected but nothing a bit of crappy fuel wouldn't cause. So it certainly sounds like there's damage to the head at least but won't know if a whole rebuild is needed until it has been stripped, or even better a whole new engine ! i've lost count of the number of problems this car has had now, I love it to bits but it is incredible the amount of serious problems that each and every gti seems to encounter at one point or another.

I had the belt and tensioner checked over only a few thousand miles ago and it was fine, my advise is not to trust the tensioner/belt for any more than 40,000 miles

[M@Turner]

Gutted for you mate. Thats gonna be an extremely pricey fix. Hopefully mine wont go before my next service. My car won't have done the 60K that VW recommend its changed at but i'd rather be safe than sorry.

Keep us posted mate and i hope the damage aint too seious.

Mat

[mikegti]

Unlucky

I got mine done just before 60k and the tensioners were good as new!

i get the feeling its like russian roulette with these things.

[andyg]

i hope your cars alright mate, let us know how u get on

[Del_GTi]

My car is at 47k and will be getting timing belt etc done in August when the service is due.

Hope it lasts that long.

[Dangerous Dave]

My Polo started making funny noises from under the timing belt cover with just under 55k on the clock luckily I managed to stop the engine without causing any damage , after reading the thread here I assumed it was the tensioners that had given up the ghost however it was the water pump and the noise I heard was the belt jumping over it To my suprise the VW garage gave me the lowest quote for replacing everything and came in at £320.

[Prash]

Phew! there was a bit of damage but not half as much as there could have been...apparently it was the 'small' (?) toothed belt tensioner connected to one of the camshafts that came loose and enabled the cam to go nicely lob sided and proceed to damage 8 of the valves it was connected to. No obvious damage to he pistons it seems, so it looks now its going to be around 900 (400 parts, 500 labour) pounds to fix, including the camshaft, valves, new headgasket and a new toothed belt kit and a few other little things, need a service and an MOT along with those so it still ain't going to be cheap, but looks like polo will live on

On a side note I also will save over £500 a year on insurance from changing insurance companies soon, so not all bad !

[morrismen]

VW Customer service also denied any knowledge of Cambelt Tensioner failures OR customers complaining about the Pedal Box Recall. VW don't seem to care when it comes to complaints - I thought they were actually listening a month or so ago, but it appears they have taken a harder line on customers making ligitimate complaints about this sort of problem - this is why I'm selling my Polo GTi before anything that is a VW KNOWN major problem like this fails on my car. Feel for you mate.

[Prash]

I know what u mean...this whole experience has made me want to avoid vw's in the future (post mk3 golf era anyway), think i'll be buying something reliable with good customer service for a change, and like u said, they couldn't really care less...i've had enough

[polo2k]

get onto vw milton keynes
afaik the pedal box if officiallt a problem
do a google for vw+recall