S6 Cambelt

[visage]

I am considering buying an S6 but am more than a little concerned that the camshafts are not chain driven. My fears are the result of a previous cambelt failure on an A4 2.6 quattro that I owned a few years ago, despite being well-maintained and nowhere near the due date for a belt change - I loved that car and the quattro system but it cost me a new engine and put me off Audi for a while. I thought that the S6 would have had a chain driven engine - and I think the later versions of this engine are chain driven (such as the RS4 - although this is due to engine bay restrictions apparently).

Can anyone offer any words of advice or reassurance on this please?:confused:

[adamss24]

Chains fail as well, the only difference is they do get noisy and will cost a fortune to replace ! Belts, on the other hand, are quieter, relatively easy to replace if you have a good set of spanners + few special tools and a timing kit and follow the instructions... Use paint to mark the position off the cams and make shure it all lines up when finished and turn the engine with a spanner couple off times to make shure nothing catches inside. A TB tool kit will help a lot but is not esential for a decent DIY mechanic. Its not the actual belt that takes time, getting at it its time consuming.

[visage]

Thanks for your observations, and I acknowledge the benefits which you mention. However, I can't help the thought that steel is obviously stronger than rubber and much less likely to snap. Also I've never had a failure with a chain driven engine, whereas I did with the V6 in the A4, and this is why I'm very skeptical of rubber cambelts now. I've also read and heard of quite a few such failures, but not with chains. Also, it seems significant - as far as I'm aware anyway - that other prestige V engines from the likes of BMW, etc. use chains for their engines. I was wondering if any forum member had had an S6 cambelt failure?