the_duke

Almost all failures are due to bearing failure in one of the pulleys or the water pump. When those fail it then causes the belt to fail due to friction or loss of tension. The belt itself would probably last a lot longer than the service interval. In fact you could probably change everything but the belt and be fine for another 75k miles. But the belt is cheap and it doesn't make any sense not to change it with all the other components. When I bought my D3 I didn't know when the belt was last changed so I went ahead and did the service. It's really not that hard. After owning the D3 for a year I decided that it was great but a D4 would be even better. I was right! So maybe the best option is to just buy a D4?

Y888

I love uniqueness of my D2,it was my high school dream.
It is paid off,i need to fix couple things and it will be good for another 10 years.

Bearings should become noisy before they fail right?

Jack88

Not always. Lost a bearing on my current driver's water pump, and it was dead silent. I did catch it before it seized though. The accompanying leak gave it away. When I got it off, turning the pulley felt like it was full of rocks but no noise.

JGiardino89

I'm in the Boston area and just purchased a 2005 A8L that needs the timing service done. Any recommended installers?


I got Quoted $850 for parts and labor from an independent Audi/VW/Porsche shop.

Jack88

$850 parts and labor sounds like they aren't doing all of it. It must include a water pump, idler, both the mechanical and hydraulic tensioners, and the belt itself. The thermostat is recommended since it requires all the work of the timing belt replacement to change out and is very cheap to do if it's already going to be apart. The cam seals are your call. It is also highly recommended to use OEM parts from the dealer, which you can order yourself online directly cheaper than any other source. I repeat, the price they offered you sounds like replacing only the belt, which is far from the only point of failure in that system. The water pump on the one I did was very near failure, for example. The Continental kit I used seemed just fine, but I've heard bad things about other non-oem parts. People stranded bad things.

Before getting too much farther in the weeds, this is a subject covered a hundred times over. Do a google search for this site on D3 A8 timing belt replacements, and it will give you a good idea of what to expect.

JGiardino89

I've read that OEM parts are best, and I'll gladly pay a little more to have those installed.

I was just asking if anyone knows a recommended installer in the Boston area because I saw Boston mentioned earlier in this thread, sorry for the confusion.

Y888

Jim Ellis Audi from Atlanta is cheaper than Ecs,D2 S8 Oem kit for TB service with serpentine belt and pulley is 980$(water pump is not available on website).
Add another 150$ for oem or 80$ for Graf or Hepu.
You can get Ina rollers and save 200$.
Get Continental belts and you will save another 70$.
Mahle thermostat is 14$ and oem is 40$.
Tensioning lever and tensioning damper are 150$ both if you use NTN,oem is 350$ both.

I would really like to know if those aftermarket oem parts passed quality control identical to genuine oem parts or is it you get what you pay for.

MP4.2+6.0

NTN is piece o crap for starters. Pardon my French. Used one in my 2000 a6 4.2. Looked like it sort of didn't track straight (pulley not parallel to block face) even when I installed it, and it was clear it didn't a year later again when I went in for another reason. So, I bought both the NTN junk AND the dealer OE one a year later, and did that part of job twice. Exactly why you don't scrimp on various of these parts unless you know they are truly OES. Mahle, Wahler, Behr and maybe one or two others I could recognize as German OES as examples in thermostat area. NTN = Nothing butT Nothing, or maybe Nothing butT Nanking.

Y888

Contracts that parts manufacturers have with auto makers are not eternal and a lot of them are moving factories to china or wherever they find cheaper labor not to cut their profit and their management salaries.
I wouldnt trust parts webisite about quality too much as their only goal is profit.

snagitseven

The reputable parts websites usually take pains to ensure the parts they provide are of quality. Also, at least with those that only sell OEM Audi parts, you know what you are getting.