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The problem is that the printed service book stipulates a change interval of the order of 80k miles without time limit and a scruffy bit of paper (at least in the case of my vehicle) from the importer at M-K + lots of dealer hype, places a 4 year time limit on the belt's running time.
Nowhere else in the world, to my knowledge, does this apply (I've checked) so in my view, the 4 year interval is a VAG UK-based scam. They were probably miffed at a fall in potential servicing revenue when variable servicing came out and so dreamed up this policy to compensate.
It's a clever scheme - it doesn't affect the all important fleet market who offload before the time limit, it catches the original owner within the "pride of ownership, dealer treatment only" period and finally it utilises that humanitarian dead cert - fear.
I have a 1.9 AWX diesel and I used to test engines for a living. I've seen hundreds of camshaft drives of all types. I changed the cambelt on my AWX after 5 + years and made a careful examination of the removed parts - belt, all rollers and water pump. All parts were in perfect condition except for the small roller which was lacking some grease due to its insanely high operating speed. As it's very lightly loaded, it doesn't matter.
My opinion, and my policy in future, will be to abide by the recommendations printed in the service book supplied with the vehicle. The M-K version is not an update, it's a scam.
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