I agree with all of the points made. I bought my Jetta for a daily driver with a 60-mile round trip commute. The fuel economy has been the bright spot.
My 2016 has 210k miles on the original timing belt. I check it every 5k miles during oul change. Still looks good. I’m a believer.
Even though the mileage had not been reached, I decided that an 8 year-old timing belt was due for replacement. While doing that, I thought that replacing all the 8 year-old hoses would be a good idea too. I didn't realize how many hoses there are on this engine and how difficult it is to get to them and replace. At least I won't have to do that again for another decade or more since I replaced the rubber hoses with silicone hoses.
On my daily R I just replaced the timing belt and water pump at 80,000 miles. It is my daily so I just did it to have piece of mind. The belt looked great as well as the water pump.
I've done many timing belts. The locking tool is a "nice to have" but certainly not required. You should be checking your cam sprocket alignment before turning the engine over, anyway, so just take your time and be careful and you'll avoid most issues.
I just had my 80K-mile service at Niello VW in Sacramento, where three Phaeton-certified techs are on staff. The timing belt is included in the 80K service, which was a little over $1,200.
Here in Australia the timing belt interval for the FSI engine in the Golf R is 105,000km (which is around 60,000 miles).
Hi Ed I just had my timing belt (tensioner, rollers, cam seals), water pump, thermostat, serpentine belt, tensioner, and rollers replaced by a very good independent for $2300 on my 04 with 78K miles. The belt that came off showed no degradation and looked fine but I feel a lot better having it done.
It's ezier to do AWD if the tranny is pointed towards the rear wheels than if its set crosswise in the car...so the "pro" is EZ AWD..the con...its a betch to work on the nose of the engine (timing belt, waterpump etc are much more labor intense than on a transverse VW).
My original timing belt assy failed at 87,0000 miles at just over 8 years. I think it might have been the tensioner failing that actually caused it. Luckily alll I had to do was pay for the timing belt replacement and VW covered the head replacement.
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