Timing belt OEM FORD or OEM Volkswagen

My friend has a 2.0 mk6 Jetta and it’s been the most reliable car he’s ever owned. It’s only needed a timing belt and basic maintenance items and he’s had it for almost 3 years and around 100,000 km added. It’s seen multiple cross border road trips without skipping a beat, and It’ll likely outlive him

For future reference timing belts get changed at 80,000 miles. No excuses. That's 20% within oem spec.

it's usually the plan with all my cars until repairs become more expensive than payments. our last car was an 2006 vw jetta tdi. sold it a few years ago (18 years old). it was still running fine-ish but a lot of things were coming up. timing belt and water pump, suspension overhaul, wheel bearings, brakes and caliper rebuild, and it was getting quite a bit of rust all around. it would have lasted and gone for 5+ more years but with 2 young kids getting into sports and stuff and the winter weather we are getting in our new home, it was a smart move to get a truck. with the aluminum body and ease of getting parts for the truck for maintenance as well as the f150 and coyote community, keeping the truck running for a long time should be easy.

For context i bought a 2008 passat estate with 149,000 miles on it for a 27 miles each way commute 3 years ago.

I got it and did a timing belt change straight away which was preventative and for peace of mind.

Ich habe mal an einem Passat das Wechselintervall von 60000 km auf 170000 überzogen. Ging vollkommen problemlos und hat super gehalten.

After sending the car for service to change the timing belt, tensioner, and the water pump on my VW Fox 2014 (brazilian model, EA111 1.6 8V), I got this noise for the first 5min the car is on, then the motor heats up a little and its gone, no performance issues so far.

Era somente para trocar correia dentada e depois de eu deixar lá, o mecanico viu q tinha algumas coisas para trocar como velas, disco de freio e pastilha de freio q estava bem gastas(na verdade ja estava batendo ferro com ferro), bandejas de suspensão + bucha(barulho embaixo do carro),correia do alternador e da bomba d´agua, bomba d´gua, troca do liquido de arrefecimento, um dos pneus traseiros estava com prego e aproveitei já fiz o balanceamento,rodizio dos pneus e alinhamento e isso deu 7000 reais.

Bare in mind that this car uses a "wet belt" timing belt, where the timing belt runs inside the engine within the oil. This means that unless oil changes are carried out frequently, small parts of the belt break off and clock up the oil pickups, starving the engine and killing it.

Regardless of servicing etc, that wet belt is still deteriorating as it is soaked in the hot engine oil.

If it has been done they are actually a good engine when working fine. Plenty of torque and good on fuel. It’s just the reliability of them that’s the major issue. They switched to a timing chain from the wet belt from 2018 for a good reason. The 1.2 turbo engines from PSA are also wet belts and also switched to a chain around 2023. They are a terrible design and simply not going to be economical to maintain properly as the car ages.