I'm looking at a few different Audi A4s, in particular a '98 Avant and a '00 Avant, both 2.8Q. Both are same price/mileage (95k range)
but '98 has full maintenance records and timing belt done and '00 is unknown. If I were to get the '00 inspected before I buy for any
problems, would the tech be able to determine if the timing belt was recently replaced without having to rip off the front end
needed to do the replacement? The dealer doesn't know about the timing belt and of course without hard proof, it would have to be done
immediately adding $1k to the cost of the car.
There is also a '98 Avant 2.8Q with higher mileage, 120k, at an excellent price that you would guess had the belt done, but again there are
no available records and you never know, so an inspection would be nice.

In my Audi search, I've called a bunch of dealers with the VIN to get this info, but all they can tell me is that it wasn't done at their
dealership. When I owned VWs the dealer could look at any service done at any dealer in the country - why can't Audi?

Thanks.

 

Normally its not the belt that fails its the tensioner, should be the main thing replaced. Not sure what to tell you when it was done, no service records = kinda hard to tell.

 

you probably can, you see belts have markings on them, so if its noth there its old. the markings can stay for like 10K. so check it out.