02 Audi A4 timing Belt Replacement

Let me say first that this Audi A4 has been the most problematic vehicle I've ever had or heard of anyone having. Don't buy an Audi that has more than 50K miles on it unless you love being stranded on the side of the road, love monthly visits to the shop and can afford about $400 a month in repairs.

Since my real girlfriend is out of town, I spent some quality alone time with the princess car. I don't mean princess in a good way, but in a frustratingly bratty way. I guess it's been a couple weeks since I bought her anything, so I figured that I'd go ahead and do something nice.

This car is a needy girl. Most girls just want tons of clothes and shoes and can never have too much. In that same way the princess LOVES new parts. Can't live without them. She can usually hold out for a couple months between demanding new parts, but with the holidays coming up she's been getting a little overexcited and is on about a once-a-month schedule. Funny how the timing works out on that one.

She just turned 80K miles and I've heard scary stories that beginning at that milage timing belts break. I know that this princess likes to have things break for no apparent reason, so I figured I'd beat her to the punch on this one. When I replaced the timing belt, I didn't consider making a complete guide for it, but I took pictures just for my own enjoyment/pain.

On most cars it doesn't really matter if the belt breaks because they'll work fine when a new one is put on. But this is a princess we're talking about here, so normal rules don't apply. This car has an interference engine. This means that during their movement, the piston and valves occupy the same space at different times. So if the timing belt breaks, then there's nothing to keep them from hitting each other. That would mean new pistons, valves, etc.

And who knows, I just may say something like "I hate this stupid car!" or "what's going to break this week?", or "I like my real girlfriend best" within earshot and *poof* who knows what would break. So as a gift for her, I replaced a few things. Brake pads, turned the rotors, had the alignment done, Timing Belt, Tensioner, Water Pump, Coolant and Reservoir, and Serpentine belt.

But more than that it was a chance for the two of us to spend some time together.

Oh yeah, and while I was doing that the hood lift rod broke. And this isn't a normal piece of metal you'd find on a normal car, no no no, it's one of those fancy gas/shock units that as you lift the hood it pushes it up for you and holds it. How did it break? I don't know. I find myself asking that question all the time with this piece of garbage on wheels. All I know is that one minute the hood was up doing fine, and the next, boom! Hood comes crashing down. So, there's another $60. I'm counting that one as part of her christmas present, though.

There's usually a mark on the crank pulley that lines up with another mark on the case to show when the crank is positioned at Top Dead Center, but for some reason Audi's mark has nothing to line up with, so it's useless. I made a punch mark on the pulley (next to my fingers) as it lines up with the case to show TDC. I have no idea why it Audi's mark doesn't line up. Perhaps this is the limited edition princess model that is designed to give the user the greatest amount of frustration possible.

The mark on the camshaft sprocket lines up just right with the mark in the case. And yes, that is a screwdriver down the spark plug hole. I had to find TDC the old fashioned way; rest a screwdriver on the piston and watch it raise and lower as the crank is turned to determine the position.

This is actually the 2nd time I took everything apart to do this job. Last week I took it apart only to find that I wasn't given a new tensioner, so the old tensioner was fully extracted and wouldn't adjust farther. This time I have the new tensioner installed. The pulley is mounted with an off-center hole so that it can be turned and moved left or right. The odd plate on the face of it has a pointer at the bottom to set the position before the nut is tightened. The distance between the Tensioner and the Pulley's adjustment lever needs to be between 7 and 10mm. My 8mm allen socket fits perfectly between them so that looks perfect.

I was lucky enough to have a friend who works at an auto parts store save me over $300 on the parts. And when one considers that the shops I talked to about doing this job wanted between $1,200 and $1,500, I think that doing it myself was the right choice as long as I didn't mess it up.