At that mileage it's easy to see if the belt has been changed.

The cambelt tensioner has a pointer and slot which are used to set the initial tension in the belt. With a cold engine, having pushed the vehicle forwards slightly in top gear to tension the belt, the pointer should be in the middle of the slot. This of course applies to a new belt - which will also have its lettering visible on the back.

As the belt wears, the pointer will move to the left as you look at it - on my AWX it had moved about 10mm when I changed the belt at 60k miles. After a further 10k miles, the pointer is still within the slot. The lettering had worn off the original belt and is still just readable on the present (Conti) belt.

I would be highly concerned that a National Chain garage would not understand the fitting and tensioning procedure. If there are any white marks anywhere - they did it wrongly...

659.

The engine code is on a paper label on the cam cover and is also included on the vehicle build list. This is a paper label fixed to the inside of the spare wheel well and is also on the front inside cover of the service book. It's usually a 3 letter code.

I would expect a belt which has done 23k miles to have just discernable lettering on the back (if it's a Conti belt) and I would expect the tensioner pointer to be just to the left of the slot when set to the conditions as detailed above.

On a PD engine I would regard it as essential to change the tensioner, small roller and the water pump at the time of a belt change. Look carefully to see if the water pump casting is brighter than the surrounding metal. Failure here is very damaging to the engine - VAG were stupid enough to put the pump on the tight side of the belt which severely shortens bearing life...

659.

Thanks for your help - sounds like a detailed inspection is called for.

The engine code is BKC

Cheers!

Alex