Borrowed Timing

As I've mentioned before, I've been getting all into car maintenance recently. When I first got the car, like the good anal owner I am, I made a spreadsheet to visually graph out at what mileage points I should do certain maintenance. I consulted the maintenance guide that came with the car as well as the official Audi service bulletins I was able to download from the web. I carefully laid out when air filters, spark plugs, oil, etc. should be checked and changed.

Probably the most important item on the entire car is the "toothed belt", or "timing belt". The engine is a high-compression interference engine which means if the timing belt breaks, the pistons slam into the valves, the engine comes to a dead stop, and you tow the car to a shop and fork over at least $5000 for a complete engine rebuild. Not a good thing.

So I was very careful to note the mileage for the timing belt change. Both the maintenance schedule and the service bulletin I had noted that the belt should be changed at 105,000 miles. The service bulletin specifically said "2.7L V6 30V engine" which is the type of engine in the S4 and a couple other models.

I just went through the 80,000 mile mark on the car, and have been picking away at the scheduled maintenance. I changed the oil, air filter, and spark plugs. The fan belt is also due for replacement. To replace the fan belt and tensioner, you have to remove the bumper, air conditioner condenser and swing the radiator away from the front of the engine. It's not terribly hard (or so I read), but it's time-consuming. A layer behind the fan belt is the timing belt. While everything is off the front of the car, it's most time-efficient to replace both belts at once. For a beginning DIYer like me, changing a timing belt is pretty intimidating. Get it wrong and you break the engine. Take it to a shop though, and it's a $1500 bill, about $350 for parts and the rest for labor involved in dismantling the front of the car.

While changing my oil last week, I noticed some wet-looking oil seepage up on the front of the engine. The car is still under warranty but only until the end of January, so now is the time to identify all the bad stuff and have the dealer repair it. During all my past oil changes at the dealer, they failed to mention the oil seepage. I'm sure they'd rather wait until after the warranty is up to tell me about the expensive repairs that will be needed.

I finally decided on a course of action. I'd order a new fan belt and tensioner and take off the front of the car to replace it. I felt that it's easily within my ability range, I have compiled lots of instructions from various sources including the official Audi repair manual, and it'll be a great learning experience. While the engine is exposed, I'll document all the oil seepages and then take the car to the dealer armed with photos and say, "Here are the oil leaks. Please fix 'em for free." I decided not to change the timing belt myself at this time. If the dealer had to open things up to do the oil leaks, I'd just have them change the belt while they were in there and it'd cost me only parts instead of for labor.

I was talking cars with a coworker when it came up that a full-time contractor we've hired for a project is a master mechanic who repairs cars out of his house. I talked to him about timing belts and he said that if I wanted to do it myself, he'd be glad to make a house-call to my place to bless my work to make sure I'd done everything okay before restarting the car. He also gave me a couple tips to avoid a couple pitfalls during a DIY belt change. So that left me thinking about the "fun" of doing my own timing belt again.

While watching some disk arrays slowly rebuild late at work yesterday, I surfed over to AudiWorld.com and read every posting about timing belts I could. One thing that I always thought was odd struck me again. Every Audi S4 enthusiast out there has religiously changed the toothed timing belt at 60,000 miles. Since the manual reads 105,000 miles, I always assumed they were just being overly careful, or possibly changed their belts because many of them occasionally track their cars and/or have modified them which generally puts more stress on an engine. Just having driven through 80,000 miles, I figured that unless an opportunity for warranty work came up with the dealer, I'd be careful and do it myself in another 10K or so when I opened up the front to replace some other bits for performance reasons.

I happened on a thread of emails where one guy asked the question I'd always thought about. "Why do you guys change your belts at 60,000 miles when the manual says 105,000 miles?" There were a couple vague answers and then another guy posted this:

"The manual is generic across multiple Audi models. The S4 is different. Read the red sticker under the hood."

Huh? Red whazzit? Are you kidding?

Hands trembling, I finished up my work and headed out to the parking lot. I had driven the truck in, so I hopped in, drove home, and made a beeline for the barn and the hood release on the Audi. I pulled up the hood and peered in. Way in the back, near the windshield, I could make out a little red sticker, about two square inches in size. I leaned forward and focused.

"CHANGE THE TOOTHED BELT EVERY 75,000 MILES."

Strangled expletives quietly escaped my lips and a lead weight sank into my stomach. When I had first started reading the AudiWorld posts, I had laughed at a "noob guide" that humorously welcomed Audi S4 owners to the wonderful world of paranoia and obsessive worry about their cars. I'm not laughing so much anymore. The more I learn about the car, the more obsessive I am about every little part and the closer I am to having paranoia overwhelm me.

Having stolen 5,000 miles past the predicted life of the timing belt per that little red sticker, I'm now afraid to turn the key. So last night I put the car up on jack stands and tonight will start ripping off the front of the car. Before I dare start the engine again, for peace of mind I need to examine everything, document all the oil leaks for possible warranty work, and visually examine the toothed timing belt for any indications that it's about to snap. If it looks okay and I think I can get the dealer to change it during warranty work, then I'll do that. If it looks bad, then the car will stay up on the stands until I can get the parts and specialty tools shipped to me so I can do it myself.

Little red sticker, indeed.