I have a 2004 1.8T A4. I bought the car a year ago at about 45,000 miles, and put almost 15k on it since then, original timing belt was still on it and was looking very worn, cracked, and loose especially with being in the desert. So I ordered a gates timing belt kit, new coolant, and a new coolant bleeder valve as the old one was leaking. This would be my second timing belt job, first was on a 97 A4 2.8, which at this point was a lot easier in my opinion.

I removed the bumper and put it in service position without swinging the whole carrier forward, just slightly pulled forward. Removed the timing covers, pulley, etc. after looking around a bit online, I found a lot of controversy over how to remove the belt and different methods everywhere. What I ended up doing was rotating the crank clockwise till it reached TDC at the cam marks. Then marked the cam and belt with nail polish, and marked the crank sprocket with the engine block, stupid of me thinking back to not mark the belt at the crank. Then removed the bolts to the hydraulic tensioner and removed the belt. Removing the water pump was a PITA, but I got it out with a lot of prying. During the cleaning of the pump housing the nail polish on the crank washed off, so I remarked it. I replaced the tensioner and pulley, and put the pump in by slowly turning each bolt till it fully went in.

I noticed the crank moved over slightly counter clockwise, so I slowly moved it back into place, then put the new belt on, the crank definitely moved at least 1 or 2 teeth counter clockwise, I took the belt off and turned it clockwise back to my marks I made, and tried again, but it moves every single time I put the belt on. And now the cam looks to be off counter clockwise about 1/2 tooth. At this point I’ve taken a break and am doing a lot of research before moving forward. But there’s so much information and everyone has different opinions, I’m not sure what to do from here. Setting the correct tension is confusing to me still. I know the space between the pulley and tensioner needs to be 6-10 mm, so 8mm is good. But the order of the steps in which that needs to be achieved confuse me. I saw someone say to offset the timing by two teeth clockwise on the crank because of the tensioner, but not sure if this is what I need to do. I also cannot find the marks for TDC on the crank timing cover, I see it on the pulley but not the cover. If I mess up the timing after pulling the plate from the tensioner do I need to buy another tensioner to fix the timing, or can it be saved and used again?

Thanks for any help, it’s my daily driver and wanna get this done ASAP!