If you’ve been reading here for a while, then you know that I’ve been watching my timing chain “stretch” in the OBDEleven app. Much to my surprise, the timing corrections have been 1.6° or less despite the car having over 269,000 miles. It’s been unbelievable! All indications were that no corrective action was necessary. Still, just because the tensioner was working and the timing was within specs didn’t necessarily mean that the 10 year old plastic guides were not nearing the end of their service life. I had a few long trips scheduled and couldn’t stand the thought of something failing while away from home! The car needed other work, so I decided to just do a “full makeover” visit with my favorite shop, Euro Pros in Yorktown, VA.

Driver’s mindsets have changed over the years. My first new car was a 1988 Nissan Sentra. I put 60,000 miles on it by the time it was three years old! The owners manual called for timing belt replacement every 60,000 miles. One of my uncles is just 11 years older than me and had grown up driving various 70s-80s era Ford trucks. He simply laughed at the thought of me getting the timing belt changed: “Gullible boy! The timing chain is supposed to last the life of the engine!” My response was simple: “Sure, I could drive it until the engine implodes or I can change the timing belt regularly and drive it for much longer!” He thought I was mislead until years later when he learned that I had driven my 1998 Jetta TDI for 445,000 miles with regular timing belt changes (old TDI timing belt shown above).

The maintenance schedule for my 2017 GTI doesn’t even call for a timing inspection, much less a replacement interval! There’s even an inspection port for the timing chain tensioner, shown in this photo. I guess VW expects owners to drive until the engine starts making weird noises and then trade-in for a new car! Nope! I definitely wanted to change the chain before any problem arose. My tensioner was extended about halfway, which indicated plenty of life left. Still, as mentioned above, I begin to lose confidence in plastic guides that have a metal chain running across them after about 10 years! 😉

I did plenty of timing belt changes on my old TDI. I observed a friend’s timing belt job a few times and then decided that I could do my own. I didn’t take that approach with my GTI. Ten years is not frequent enough of an interval for me to feel good about tackling the job myself, especially outdoors in the heat and with the car on jack stands instead of a lift. I preferred to have someone who does the work far more frequently do the job. Unlike my TDI’s dry timing belt, the 2-liter’s chain runs through an oil bath. So the car got an early oil change that coincidentally put me back on “even” 10k intervals again. No more math to figure out when I need to change the oil. I’m so lazy! HAHA! By the way, this photo shows zero oil sludge or other indications that my oil needs to be changed more frequently. Occasional lab tests indicate that the Liqui Moly 2331 Leichtlauf 5w-40 has been great and that the engine is still in good condition!

As you might imagine, paying a shop to replace the timing chain and supporting hardware can be expensive! I’m not sharing costs here since pricing will vary from region to region and as time passes. I used to call the dealer for a quote first. Their sticker shock helped me to appreciate the quotes from independent shops! 😀 Today, I trust Euro Pros enough to just take their quote and have them do the job. There’s just one thing that I don’t like about this job: There was nothing “wrong” with the car when I took it in and there’s still nothing wrong with it! Having money vanish from my wallet is tough when I can’t see an immediate benefit. I’m optimistic that the payoff will be years from now when the engine is still running great!

I mentioned that the car needed additonal maintenance. I’ll share that in my next post. Until then, I’ll share this wise saying about timing chain maintenance: “It’s cheaper to replace it 10,000 miles too early than 10 feet too late.” I agree!

Ready for Another 270,000 Miles!

Scott