A friend of mine recently had the timing belt brake on his '00 Jetta TDI. He had it towed to a mechanic how told him the motor was ruined and needed to be replaced. He gave up and got a new car. I asked him what exactly the mechanic said and my buddy could not remember anything specific other than the motor is blown. Is their an easy way to verify that the engine is really trashed? What should we look for and what should be asked of the mechanic to verify that it was actually ruined?

BTW it is a stock TDI with 170K with a 5 sp.

 

I love diesels, and it's always a shame when one dies. Unfortunatly, because the compression in the cylinder is so high, once the timing belt goes, it just destroys the engine. I believe it wrecks the valves and it probably warps the cyclinder head. What ever the case, look in to getting a used or rebuilt TDI from a wrecker, or ask the mechanic about rebuilding you motor. That's about the only thing that can happen. You probably know this, but the timing belt should be changed every 100,000 KM, and inspected once per year with your annual tune up.

 

yeah, when the timing belt brakes all the valves stop moving but the pistons don't. all the valves that are in the open position will get completely annihilated by the piston when it comes up into the compression stroke. which will demolish the camshaft and basically everything else in the head....

you can ask the mechanic if the engine is an "interference engine" meaning that the valves and pistons would come in contact if the chain broke. if it isn't an interference engine there would be enough clearance for the valves to be open and the pistons to move by without hitting.... i'm fairly sure they don't make non-interference engines any more though.

hope it helped

 

Not that it really matters in this case, but VW recommends changing the timing belt every 40K miles for an automatic TDI and 60K for manual. Not sure why the diff, but that's straight out of my owner's manual. And, believe me, if you own one of these you dread that maintenance day, cause it ain't cheap.

What I'm curious about is how many miles your friend went w/o changing it. I'm sure you could get a lot more miles than VW claims, though I know I won't risk it myself!

 

Please visit www.TDIclub.com for your answer to the question. The club's forum is littered with this issue.