Any gotchas to look out for when replacing belts?

[mcoomer]

Picked up the accessory and supercharger belts and will change those out this weekend. Any odd things to look out for when changing these?

Thanks,
Mike

[SwankP3RF3ct10n]

Are you gonna put it in service mode or not? If not, I would stick your hands and arms around in there and make sure you can get everywhere because routing the accessory belt is a bit tricky (not difficult, but the routing is a bit all over the place). Also, the tensioners are really really stiff, so if you don't have a belt wrench, then you may need to interlock two normal wrenches together to get the necessary torque to compress them. Also, seriously consider compressing each tensioner and then locking it in place with an allen wrench stuck in each one's locking pin location. Pics of the tensioners on the ECS website will give you an idea of what that looks like. Look at page 14 of this PDF to see how each belt is routed. https://www.scribd.com/doc/306022505...-0V6TFSIengine

[Jflow23]

You will need to get into the service position to do the accessory belt. The supercharger roller will need to be loosened or removed...which is why the service position is required. You will need a triple square for the roller.

On the B8.5, both tensioners are 16mm.

The S/C belt is much easier and can be changed from the top without the service position. However, recommend jacking the passenger side, remove the aero cover, use a nail or Allen wrench to hold the tensioner in the released position and swap the belt. S/C alone should take 15 minutes tops.

Accessory belt is lifetime and shouldn't need to be changed...it's a PITA anyway. Change it if you go dual pulley since the crank has to come off anyway.

[mcoomer]

If the accessory belt is a PITA and doesn't need to be changed, the one I bought may go into the box of stuff that I should never have bought. Box is pretty full, but I just put some ABBA CDs in there the other day and saw there's still a little room. May come in handy one day.

Thanks for the tips.

Mike

[S4'ed]

Accessory belt = "Lifetime" which in Audi-speak means that it is good till it breaks...then its lifetime is over......I would change it.....and the lower pulley too (the rubber joined inner and outer portions separate when they get old...)

I want to know if the lower pulley can be changed without pulling the radiator support forward, into the "Service Position". I have a lift and access to the pulley seems tight, but perhaps do-able from underneath.

[Jflow23]

The crank pulley cannot be changed without going into the service position. You can't loosen the supercharger roller to get the serpentine belt off. Releasing the serpentine tensioner alone will be a pain without going into the service position. You will also have to slip a triple square bit into that small space to remove the 8 crank pulley bolts. It may be possible, if you can figure out how to slip the serpentine belt into position...but I could not do it without loosening the S/C roller.

Take a look at the life beyond stage II thread...everyone who's done the crank install says service position is required. Same goes for S/C pulley.

Service position takes 20mins tops...you'll save that time in frustration.

I've done the crank pulley 3 times now.

[mcoomer]

So, I managed to do the maintenance on the car today. Oil change, plugs, air cleaner, cabin filter, supercharger belt, fluids, etc. The plugs weren't too hard to change, but whoever put the coolant reservoir where it is obviously never changed the plugs in this car. Not hard to move it out of the way enough to get to the plugs but a bit of a PITA. Old plugs came out dry, no oil at all.

As for the supercharger belt, I managed to get it done without going to the service position. I already had the air cleaner off so I had a bit more room to work with to the side of the engine. I put a long 16mm straight wrench on the tensioner and got the belt off pretty easily. Getting it on was more difficult as the tensioner rotated back more without the tension from the belt, which meant I had to get my hand between the top of the radiator cover and the front of the engine. If I had to do it all over again, I'd order the longest belt tensioner wrench I could find. Need something long enough to clear the top of the radiator. I skipped the accessory belt but I may order the wrench and do that to. No rush. I looked it over real well and didn't see anything that made me think it was going to fail. Pretty obvious that you're net getting that one off without moving the radiator to the service position.

Reset the SRI with VAG and called it good.

Thanks for the tips,
Mike

[shadycrew31]

In the maintenance interval guide the vbelt is supposed to be replaced at 75k.. I am not sure which v-belt they were taking about so I replaced both around 50k.