Club 80-90 Forums

I have a five year old T5 2.5 diesel van and have just booked into SMG for service/MOT. The person booking van in asked if I had had the cambelt changed. he claims this needs doing every 4 years.
As the van has only done 20,000 quite gentle miles I am not sure that a new cambelt is required - my understanding was that cambelts need changing ever 60,000 mile.
I have looked in the handbook but no guidance whatsoever on cambelt change times.

I don't want to risk not having it done as I understand that failure could be serious but I don't want to spend £600 if not required.
Any advice on this would be much appreciated.
Best Wishes
Ernest

yep it needs to be changed along with the water pump..............that is if you have no record of it being changed previously

mark

Ask Alex, Max and Caddy, he's a vw mastertech

I think the t5's run gears rather than a cambelt. They have a rubber like bush mounted on some gears which do wear. I think the 1.9 t5's run a normal cambelt but I could be wrong.

Jim

http://www.vwt4forum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=170611" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There you go, I thought it was. No cambelts

Hi all

Thanks very much for advice - as the advice, taken overall, was still inconclusive (or rather differed) I phoned SMG again and asked them to d/check if the T32 2.5 Tdi 2009 was cambelt or gears. He went away and after a few minutes came back and confirmed that no cambelt, just gears, and these with a service schedule of 100,000 miles or very 8 years.

So a £600 bill deferred for a few years

Best Wishes
Ernest

Change where you have work done on your van, if you would not have questioned it you would probably have been £600 lighter...and seriously would you have known if or if not they would have changed your non existent cam belt??...

Yes...it does make you wonder re. the credibility of some garages - fortunately in the VW world there are plenty of good honest ones.

Ernest