OT - VW Jetta 1.8 turbo, Broken timing belt Options

[GeorgeRud]

My son's school car (2004 Jetta GLI) just broke the timing belt and is sitting at a VW dealer where it was towed.

As this is an interference engine, I imagine the valves are toast, but have no experience how bad any other damage might be. Any members been through this? The car is coming up on 100,000 miles (manual says to replace belt at 105,000 miles), and I wonder if it's worth spending the money to have it repaired. It's a sweet little car, but I have to be practical so I have money available to throw at old Porsches instead!

[r_towle]

The simple (read cheapest) fix from what I have found is to find a used head...new head gasket, belt etc.

If not, pull the head and see what it will cost at a machine shop.
It may need more than a few new valves...a few may have been bent.

Call around to junk yards for the head, see if you find a low cost head.
Its not the end of the world...but it will be a few thousand to fix it at a shop.

VW belts, in my opinion (and experience), are 75k belts, no matter what the manual says..

I am so happy they went back to timing chains on the newer 4.2 liter motor...


Rich

[kerensky]

VW engines in general are pretty bulletproof. Since the engine quits running immediately, most of the time a snapped belt results in a few valves bent/broken, but nothing truly catastrophic. Now if he was revving past 6K and it snapped, well, that would probably be bad. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Should be able to find a decent used head if the rebuild estimate is high. Go sign up at vwvortex.com and check out their extensive classifieds. Also, check with other shops. Dealers are notoriously expensive, especially on work like this. In a similar situation an acquaintance had been quoted $4000 from a dealer, and a friend of mine who has a shop here in OKC did the rebuild for $1500. vwvortex.com regional forums would be a good place to ask around for recommendations.

Yeah, I tend not to trust timing belts that are over 6 years old, regardless of mileage, and especially on any interference motor. Of course, all my VWs are non-interference, so a snapped belt is a minor inconvenience.