Ok so first off, I have a 2001 a6 avant. I took my car to a shop to get a timing belt work done on about a month ago. When they went to check the timing belt area, they said I need to get timing belt, water pump, tensioner, tensioner pulley, basically the whole 9 yards. Cost me about $1200 which was cheap I believed. Took them about 4days to fix.

In the beginning it was making some noise, so about a week into I told them I'll drop the car off again. But over the weekend (thanksgiving week) the noise went away. I probably drove about 150miles with the new timing belt on, never did no more then 55mph. But on Friday the 13th (12/13/2013), as I was going to a store on the freeway going 65mph the car jerked bad, and the engine locked up. Luckily I was already on the right land, but the power steering locked up so had the pull over manually.

I stopped the car on the shoulder and popped the hood. It smelled like burnt rubber and I was actually scared that the car might catch on fire. By the way, I'm handicapped with a cane. (Jacksonville, fl cops are lazy here. Only 1 undercover cop stopped and asked if I need help out of 15 cops that passed by me) .My husband was furious about the car but still came to my rescue like always. When my husband got there he popped open the cover for the timing belt and yelled out it was gone. Then I called the mechanic and they had told me to call their tow truck guy to tow it over there. While the tow truck guy was pulling the car up to the bed my husband noticed that the two front cv joints were gone also.

Once we got to the shop, they said they'll look into it. Now Wednesday now and no call from them so I decided to give them a call. Talked to the receptionist and told me this, "we don't know why the tensioner bolt had snapped off, if that was the case the timing belt should of been fine, but the belt was shredded. We want to find out if your engine locked up first or the timing belt shredded first. We are right now checking how many valves are bent. We also talked to the manufacturer where we had bought the kit from and told them what had happened to you. They said they'll work with us and you on this. And we will work with you also on this matter."

Now to me it sounded like this matter will come out of my pocket. Does anybody know what we should do? Their rep for their store on BBB is pretty good. They been around for 17 years and works on high end European cars ( saw couple of Bentley in their shop). This Is our first audi and we love the car. We bought it for $3000 in February and I want this car fix and nothing out of my pocket. Sorry I do not have any pictures on the timing belt. My husband fix cars but he didn't wanted to touch the audi period. Thanks in advance for your comments.

 

In order your the engine to "lock up" like you're describing, it would most likely involve the timing belt to fail. I'm guessing the tensioner failed and had enough play for it to get shredded by the water pump pulley. If indeed it's directly related to the timing belt failing - which I honestly can't see any other reason why it wouldn't be - the shop that did the work for you really should be held liable for the damage. If it was only 150 miles, I cannot see them having much choice.

 

Review the receipt/contact you probably had to sign with the shop to see if they state information on their work guarantee. Since they replaced the timing belt & it seems the timing belt failed, they they should (easy for me to say) cover all repair costs. You may need to beat them over the head with your cane to get them to agree (just joking). Hopefully they'll stand behind their work & cover the re-repair.

 

The timing belt is warranty for 1 year. The contract only really states that they just did the work. It's a basic contract.

 

I'm going to guess that the new tensioner failed and allowed the belt to jump off the sprockets. You have bent valves now. This will require pulling one or both heads and sending them to the machine shop. I hope the shop stands behind their work. If the tensioner failed their supplier may be able to help. I had this happen on my A6 2.8 30v and it was then tensioner that cracked at the bolt hole. It was new and lasted less than 1000 miles before uit grenaded the engine. Lots of fun.