Just had a quick Google and what a can of worms! General consensus is chain but it's not clear. If you look under the bonnet at the left hand side of the engine, do you see a clip together plastic case covering the left hand side of the engine or does everything look metal and more sort of integrated? If it' s a plastic case it's a belt. If it's all metal and more integrated looking, it'll be a chain. You can sometimes see the chain through the oil filler cap but that depends entirely on where the filler cap happens to be located.
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Sorry if you posted about this elsewhere, but out of interest at what age and miles did you get the belt changed, thanks!
Paddy shared the workshop manuals in the guides forum at the top of the Leon Mk3 page. The maintenance manual here from p.8 tells you which engine has what belt/chain and what the service intervals are p.10-11 - notice the time limit is a UK only phenomenon that is not in the maintenance manual, and one which I frequently rant about!
https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1M4ofxxMgsFjE7hNWg6l4KuifelmdMUu0?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1M4ofxxMgsFjE7hNWg6l4KuifelmdMUu0?usp=sharing
Car is six years old but only done 37k, timing belt kit Dayco KTB819 was only £70 from Germany, so doing it myself was a no brainer really. I also changed the serpentine belt and tensioner at the same time. You do need locking tools and a crank pulley holding tool as that bolt is tight!
Good, my wife's Polo 1.2TSI is only coming up for 5 years old and roughly 30K miles, I can't explain why, but while I carry out many repair jobs on an engine, I have a keen desire to offload changing the timing belt to an Indie workshop - I can't really explain why I work that way, my loss!
Edit:- I'm guessing that the old belt and idlers and tensioners etc were still "as good as new" and the aux belt tensioner change was just done as good practice?
Hi, that’s understandable really, the cam pulleys are on a taper with no keyway, there are no timing marks, and apparently the pulleys are not perfectly circular either! The latter apparently to reduce load on the belt. Modern engines just get more complex, different beasts to when I started my apprenticeship in ‘73 that’s for sure.
I like to keep a rolling maintenance plan, although the car is low mileage, it does do a couple of Italy/Austria trips a year (or did until lockdown!)
I like to keep a rolling maintenance plan, although the car is low mileage, it does do a couple of Italy/Austria trips a year (or did until lockdown!)
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