VW cam belt

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Fri 27 Sep 2002 09:46
VW cam belt - cabsmanuk
I recently had the cam belt changed on my sharan tdi. The garage cocked it up at first and said that they fitted it a quarter of a tooth out. Is this possible? and would it damage the camshaft?
The engine subsequently failed after 800 miles with a lobe dropping off the camshaft.
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Fri 27 Sep 2002 10:22
VW cam belt - RichardW
You can't fit it a "quarter of a tooth" out. A quarter of a turn, maybe. If they turned it over with the timing all wrong (or worse ran the engine) and a piston made contact with a valve then it's very possible that damage was done to the camshaft.

Richard
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Sat 28 Sep 2002 00:03
VW cam belt - Dave_TD
My Octavia with the same engine (1.9 diesel) had a cambelt fitted by the dealers 1 TOOTH out. It ran, but was about 50% down on power. (Which I suppose would be because the valves were open during part of the compression stroke.) I got them to fix it the following day though, and now it's as fine again.

Yours couldn't have been a quarter of a turn of the camshaft or crankshaft out, as that would equate to half or one whole stroke of the piston. Maybe it was just one tooth adrift where the garage didn't wedge the crankshaft or camshaft in position before they took the belt off.

Sounds like you've got a warranty claim there...
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