Buying 2014 6C 1.2 SE - Questions to ask dealer

[RUM4MO]

Yes but we are talking about UK here, in general people are not civilised enough to work out that there are other people out there with other needs - social/moral fabric has been abandoned to save money! Governments see that there is no money in cycling or supporting alternative means of personal transport, so very little provision is made to provide a safer environment for them.

Seems like I made a mess of snipping out a section of your original message iichel, I only removed the section you had included as a quote from the earlier posting, but editing deleting ** did nothing, oh well! Maybe I don't understand much!

[iichel]

yeah i'm also (partially) responsible for the unlogical order of posts. some posts of a new user still need to be approved and I was a bit slow today. sorry for that.

[RUM4MO]

Thanks for this comprehensive answer! I've actually managed to find (and subsequently lose again) info on the VW site that says cars before 2009 should be every 4 years, and after 2009 every 5 years, so I have have it and the water pump done this time next year as I plan to keep the car until it or I die an unexpected death.

One thing though, I think that VW UK is handing out duff information about this just to keep their dealerships workshops busy, yes I can see the logic in increasing the pre 2009 engine's 4 years to to 5 years post 2009, but at that time most other VW engines had chain drives, they are now back to belt drives with these engines, and as iichel suggested, the change period should have increased due to better design work on the latest engines. If not, then VW Group are guilty of designing and building engines that need too much time and money thrown at them, Ford for instance, I think, are back to using belt drive for the camshaft but run the fibre/rubber belt in oil and so call it a "wet belt" set up that allows them to give a far longer service period for their belts.

Edit:- VW Group should be able to give each engine type that has a cam belt its own belt service period/miles - they are being lazy and sly for not bothering to do this!

[RUM4MO]

yeah i'm also (partially) responsible for the unlogical order of posts. some posts of a new user still need to be approved and I was a bit slow today. sorry for that.

That is okay, I thought that I was having a really bad time, or had messed up and tried to correct it and messed up even more.

[iichel]

haha no! you can blame me for that...

[og77]

Edit:- VW Group should be able to give each engine type that has a cam belt its own belt service period/miles - they are being lazy and sly for not bothering to do this!

I'm going to tweet them and ask In any event, it looks like it is not due until next year at the earliest, and 40 years from now at the latest, so there's no way I'll persuade them to do it before I buy it.

[og77]

In case anyone else ever wants to know, they made me give the VIN before they could tell me.

They said:

We can advise that there's no mileage recommendation for servicing this car, but we do advise that the timing belt is changed every 5 years. We hope this helps.

Initially I thought that was very unhelpful, but I guess because it's rubber, and rubber perishes whether you're using it or not, it kinda makes sense. Kinda.

[RUM4MO]

og77, thanks for getting back to us, so VW are sticking with the "5 years recommended service period" for these cam belts, ah well, like you say they are made of rubber and other stuff so will need replaced at some point, though I would have liked to think that by this state in the "fitting rubber reinforced cam drive belts" game, something would have been done to increase their service life to maybe 10 years, in my mind it is okay to expect to replace the auxiliary belt(s) after 5 or so years, and that job can usually be carried out by the owner so overall costs are low, but replacing a cam belt on these cars will probably be in the order of £450, which is annoying.

Edit:- I'm guessing that it is VW UK that you have been in contact with - they always seem to keep the service time very low when compared with other VW importers in other countries, which does not seem right, VW AG should be issuing the correct time/distance period for changing this item - and it should get set out in the owners information either in paper form or in digital form.

[iichel]

For context, on this engine they recommend the same interval in Switzerland.
After asking: "what happens when we don't?"
If it breaks, no warranty. Ouch!

[RUM4MO]

That is fair enough, still a bit annoying for a "newer" engine, maybe they should have followed the lead taken by Ford in using "wet" rubber belt systems.

It will probably take some time for the fully content of what should be in a "cam belt kit" to be worked out, for the older 1.4 16V BBY 75PS engine, the older but very similar version of the latest 86PS engine, VW Group only included a few important items, but with time "proper" VAG independent specialists realised that the small top roller was failing normally before the second cam belt change, so my indie included that item along with the water pump to every early 1.4 16V he worked on. The later, or last version of that 1.4 86PS engine did not need so many parts as VW Group had simplified the drive system slightly by the time the later versions went into production.

I do understand that there will be a "cam belt service kit" for the 1.2TSI 90/110PS engines, but I'm just thinking about what else really should be included and normally that does not increase the price by much and improves the reliability of that engine until its next belt change.