onepoint8tee, do you really think the WHOLE head needs to be replaced after breaking the timing belt? wouldn't you think a valve train rebuild would pretty much take care of it? I mean, with obvious exceptions for engines that get severely F-ed of course.

 

Man that guy really ripped you off! Look at that list!

That guy ripped your car apart and put a new timing belt on (plus the other stuff he did). They you paid him again 8k miles later to rip all of the same stuff off to do your water pump and tensioner. Those two things should ALWAYS be replaced when you do the timing belt. Never take your car back to that guy again. I almost don't want to ask how much you spent the second time around. If you blew about $1k, you should know that if he would have done it when you were there the first time, it would have only added like $200 to the original bill.

I have heard the same things about switching from standard (organic) oil over to synthetic. In this case, you actually run a bigger risk in something going wrong if you stayed with standard oil instead of switching to synthetic. Switch over with confidence, it is the correct thing to do. If you run into problems later, it will most likely be because the PO wasn't running synthetic whenthey should have been. +2 on 0W-40 for your car.

I have a different engine than you, but my car runs 230 degrees all the time when fully warmed up. You should be good as long as its 250 or less.

 

didnt Audi extend its timing belt warranty to 105k miles??????

not sure wether this applies to you or not, but you may want to look into it.

if your tb broke and you have a stick car chances are almost guaranteed that u bent valves. if u have a TIP then u might have got lucky.

the little noise could be either valves or your cam tensioner.

 

Im pretty sure the labor it takes to rebuild the valve train would be more than the cost of a used head in good shape. 00+ heads are hard to come by though, so I can see justifying the labor to rebuild the existing head with new valves, etc.

 

Audi only recommends you change your timing belt at 105k. Not a warranty by any means.

 

and honestly,, audi tells you to change your oil what every 15k miles. that tells you somethin about taking their advice

 

and their auto tranny fluid is good for "lifetime"... Another sad BS story which makes no sense...

 

Alright...I put the 0w40 in and everything seems fine.....thus far. Thanks everyone.