Problems following Cam Belt Change

[Fred Duck]

I have a 52 plate Octavia 1.9TDI Elegance with 56K on, bought at the start of December. The car is in superb condition and I've worked my way through all the servicing needs over the last few weeks finishing with a cam belt change, by a local garage, on Monday.

Since I got the car back, however, I've noticed a distinct lack of power at high revs and when climbing a hill. On the flat, in third, it will rev to about 3500 and that's it. Low speed running is OK, just top end that has gone missing. If it was a petrol, I'd say it was retarded.

It's going back to the garage on Tuesday for them to check it out but is it likely that the pump timing has been set incorrectly and, if so, would this be the cause of the lack of operformance? It was fine before the cam belt change.

FD

[onzarob]

Could be due to the belt being fitted wrong, but also check vacuum tubing for turbo and connection to MAF as this would give similar symptoms. Maybe they forgot to plug them back in ;)

[Fred Duck]

Many thanks. I've just taken the plastic engine cover off to have a good look and all hoses seem connected and the MAF sensor connection is fine.

The symptoms are as if the turbo wasn't coming in though so I see where you were coming from. I have been told that a lack of perormance after a cam belt change is common because the pump timing hasn't been set correctly but can't find any references to it on here.

Anybody know if that's true?

FD

[greg123]

What equipment have they used to set the pump timing? Ask them for a screen shot printed out, you have to set it up via computer on these. Having said that, unless they got something a tooth out or really wrong static timing doesn't usually cause such issues, if they have the gear to time it up they should also be able to do a full fault code scan and do a requested vs actual boost graph etc to diagnose for you.

Greg.

[Fred Duck]

Over last weekend, I noticed a further problem in that the brake servo seemed to have very little capacity. The brakes worked fine but, if you pumped the pedal just once, it went hard and the servo was exhausted. Imagine braking, lifting off for a split second and then braking again.

In the end, this was the clue. One of the vacum pipes that run along the top of the scuttle had been pulled slightly apart during the belt change meaning a leak on the brake servo and it was also stopping the turbo from boosting up. My TDI had been turned into an SDI!!

Push the joint back together, job done. SDI now a TDI again and. in fact, going even better than it did before (famous last words:(.

Many thanks for the advice.

FD

[onzarob]

the fix is always simpler than finding the problem :)

Glad it's sorted:D