I know I'm just pissed because my waterpump musta broke couple days ago & I have had it sitting in my garage for awhile. plus I'm not even over 50k.

 

Warranty is why I let mine go.
No point in paying $800 to fix something that isn't broken... Especially when If it does break I have warranty coverage.

Informed / Responsible = SUCKER!

 

I had thoughts that they would say it needs to be changed, but I'm at 46,000 so I figure I have a good chance that it'll test OK

positive thinking!

 

How do the test the timing belt anyways? They probably take a rubber mallet and pound on your tires and say you are good to go
Besides, it usually isn't the timing belt that fails first. It's some other crappy component like the waterpump, idler pulley etc. that fails and then in turn destroys the timing belt.
Why they ever used a plastic impelar on a water pump is beyond me.

 

The plastic impellar is genius but in all reality waterpump failure (or impellar) isn't what really causes the belt to fail...it will most likely just overheat when the pump goes. what does fail are the pullies/tensioners and then the belt breaks...I wonder if I take my car in there like this and say my belt went would they put it back together for me???

 

Do know if you keep going & the belt breaks without you changing it your motor will never run teh same again. It'll be fixed. & after couple weeks you notice that it keeps failing & running ***tty, bad starts, etc. You might as well buy a new motor if your not going to take care of the one you got.

 

I would get the Timing Belt, tensioners and the Water Pump / Idler etc....done ASAP

These cars have had issues from 60K and up.

1.8T Manual used to claim 90K service interval, now its a lot less.

Your engine is expensive, don't chance it.

 

I think this is a load of BS. I just reread this settlement offer. If you have an inspection done at say 80,000 miles and they recommend you replace the belt (at your cost of course) then the warranty will apply. If you dont replace the belt and it snaps you are SOL. How is that fair? Why even bother with the inspection then? Why not just say replace at 80,000 miles? I called my local dealer when I got the notice and he was already recommending over the phone that i have it replaced when I bring it in for my free inspection. Come on?

 

The belt is a wear part, just like changing your oil or changing your tires. Why would Audi pay for your preventative maintenance? The settlement was not a product liability claim, but rather that the recommended interval was too long and there was nothing in the owner's manual saying to even inspect it. Now they have added the inspection and are agreeing to pay for those that had failures.

 

Yep, this settlement is a pretty good scam in my mind.

I'm actually an A4 owner - over here because there was not much discussion on this topic over there and I found this thread in my search... Picked mine up with 130K, broken timing belt and fixed it - as well a some other things on it. Picked it up to fix, sell and go... Now using it and like it...

At the time, I looked at the tensioner really good and the hydraulics in it seemed fine. Made a decision to just change the pulley (even though the bearing seemed fine). In reading some of the other info on this, the tensioner may be the root cause of some of the problems.

So, now that I think I may actually want to keep this car longer than anticipated, I may yank the tensioner off and replace it with a new one.

Any thoughts (Other than you should have done it the first time... I know, I know...)