Car just been serviced. They tell me the timing belt WILL need to be replaced after 90K km or the engine will be damaged and the brakes too. Cost several thousand?

Could this true?

What kind of car is it?

It is a VW Golf Estate, 1.9d turbo, 4 wheel drive

Use the internet and check the service interval and what should be done at each interval. If you still have the original documentation of the car, some detail what is done as a minimum for each service schedule.

Depends what car you have. If the timing belt breaks and the valves hit the pistons, this equals new engine.

Manufacturers have to recommend servicing intervals and they protect themselves by having a large safety margin before the belt or whatever breaks.

If you don't do it and try and sell the car somebody will see it and deduct this from value of the car.

If the belt breaks at 90'001km, the manufacturer will say "told you !"

We have a renault grands scenic, and they also said the belt needed replacing after 100k or 4 years - whichever comes first. (Which we had done)

There was also an online forum for this type of car, which said the same thing.

Maybe you could find a forum for your car?

Yes, it's what VW specifies. It could be much cheaper, however, to do that in a garage in Germany. Welcome to VW's world where the parts costs a bomb and the labour even more.

At 90000 K's I would expect the timing belt to be replaced. Also if the timing belt does fail while driving you can kiss goodbye to that engine, and depending how it fails (complete lockup) you might be looking at a new gearbox/clutch as well. I've seen it happen.

Get the timing belt replaced.

timing belt snapping wont affect the brakes. 90k sounds about right for a belt change, it usually km or time whatever is first.

a local independant garage should be able to change the belts a lot cheaper the a VW main dealer.

as others have said, if the belt snaps then it usually takes out the whole engine, had one snap on a nissan primera, made a right mess of everything in the engine and wrote the car off.

I had a belt snap on a Ford after 35k miles many years ago. It didn't completely destroy the engine but almost did, and cost a fortune to fix.

Don't economise on the timing belt... or brakes.

I did the belt change last year for Golf and cost was 2200 CHF.
And 90k km is normal change interval for Golf.

i must admit i dont know the local prices for these things, but several thousands for brakes and a timing belt OMG!!!!

havings done alittle time in a garage back home heres my estimate
changing a timing belt would be a 2-2.5hour job, the brakes around the same, maybe with the slower pace here (from my experience) i think 6 hours should be enough for both.

i have heard VW is expensive so even if the brakes are

120 each *4 =480
300 hr labour *6 = 1800
200 for belt

total 2,480. that would be the higher end of my rough guestimate.

and as someone would of said a local garage should be able to do the job for alot less.

They are spot on. If memory serves me correctly there was even a warranty recall on it.

Can anyone recommend a garage to do this work in Germany or France? A friend of mine has the same problem (and same engine!) and needs to get the timing belt changed.

Trust swiss garagist Normally you change timing belt each 100k in japanease cars, in german probably each 80-100k. If it breaks, depending on engine, the pistons hit valves and bend them. So if it happens you will have to change all valves and timing belt ... which is more costly.

You can check visually its condition by opening plastic cover and looking at it.

As everyone else has said, it is true. I have the same issue, at the last service the garage said get the timing belt changes at 90K ( VW, 1.9tdi pd ).
They quoted CHF 1100 approx, and that's a VW dealer. No idea if that includes parts.

I read up on it, and the thing to do is get the water pump and all the other belts changed at the same time, cheaper in the long run if you are keeping the car.

Anyway, most garages will have a 'fixed price' for this kind of thing as they know it's 2.5 hours or whatever, so they should be able to quote over the phone.

Well, it depends. In VW, IIRC it is easier to change belt if compare with Toyota. But there will be always some rusted bolt, bad position, etc ..

Thanks for all your advice everyone, although it begs the question "is now the time to change the car". It is a 2004 model, with the body work damaged by the storm right out of a hollywood movie (golf ball size frozen hail).

Part exchange the car is worth perhaps 8K even less; if I spend 3K on changing all the belts and water pump as suggested how long will it be before I need to change some other major bits out. Have already just had to buy new summer and then new winter tyres for the damn thing....

Is this why you never see older cars in this country, it just too expensive to maintain them .

with the belts due to be changed the car is worth a lot less, unless you can find someone who knows nothing about cars and is too lazy to check.

Unless your buying a brand new car its probably not worth selling, generally people don't sell cars unless there is a problem / major bill comming up, and swiss dealers don't seem to do any work at all on there 2nd hand sales. they seem to sell em as they came in, faults and all.

At least with the belts changed you know your good for another 90k or 5 years.

3k sounds a tad expensive for a belt change, find an independant specialist to do the job, sign up to one of the many VW owner forums for recomendations, on our car the belt change at a dealer is over £1500, indy's will do it for £500!!

Slight tangent, but why don't all manufacturers just move to timing chains since the service intervals are much longer (maybe even lifetime of the engine )