Polo 1.4 16v tensioners

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Mon 12 Jun 2006 14:35
Polo 1.4 16v tensioners - Rudedog
I think this may have been touched on before.

My wife has a Polo 1.4 16v X reg (39,000 miles), on Friday the car started making a noise from the under the engine cover at the left side of the engine. Managed to get it to a garage and they have said that the plastic pre-tensioner has broken.

I know that this seems to be a known problem with this engine type but has anyone claimed any of the repair bill from VW as this seems to have happened before I would have expected (if at all!), the belt is changed every 60,000 miles.
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Mon 12 Jun 2006 15:12
Polo 1.4 16v tensioners - Screwloose
Rudedog

Well done on having the sense to get it checked BEFORE it took the belt out. That one did rather well for a 16v; I've seen them go at 5K; 9K; 14K; and loads around 19-22K. Nearly all took the head with them. Either sell it now; or change belt[s] and water-pump/rollers every three years.

You'll need to be lucky to get any retrospective warranty out of VW on an X-plate. They aren't too helpful about paying for all the new engines on the late 100bhp versions; with those, you'll be lucky to see a 60,000 belt-change before the compressions have gone. [They'd do better taking the Beta approach.]
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Mon 12 Jun 2006 21:13
Polo 1.4 16v tensioners - Big John
Is there an after-market (or VW/Audi/Skoda) metal pre-tensioner available for this engine yet?
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Tue 13 Jun 2006 14:05
Polo 1.4 16v tensioners - 659FBE
Try sending an e-mail to INA, the bearing company. They make the metal guide and tensioner rollers that PSA fit to their diesel engines. I changed both on a TUD5 engine fairly recently at 100k miles, but the ones which came off were absolutely perfect. They are solid metal wheels with double row ball bearings and seals rather that shields to keep the grease in and the muck out. A very convincing job, which partly accounts for a low incidence of timing belt failure on these engines. (The water pump was a mess, however).

659.
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