Hey, I just wondered if anyone else here has heard about problems with the timing belt tensioner on the V6 Passat (mine is ATQ). I had mine replaced 10,000 miles ago, along with the timing belt, water pump, drive belt, and drive belt tensioner, all of which were genuine VW parts from the dealership. Then today, it just failed today at 3000rpm on the interstate, so needless to say, the engine is toast 
. I did have a few minutes of warning, but I thought the ticking/thumping noise was coming from the alternator, or A/C clutch, and I was on my way to work, so I didn't think another mile or two would kill the alternator, etc. So you can imagine my surprise when the engine sudenly got very loud and lost power, along with the CEL illuminating. I thought I was doing the right thing by getting the timing belt and tensioner replaced, as the car had 117,000 miles, and there was no record of it being done. So now I paid $1100 to get that done as "preventative maintenance", and it broke anyway! The shop that I had it towed to said they've had alot of problems with the tensioners on these engines, and that VW should be responsible, as a premature failure of this type could only be a manufacturing/design defect. So I'm wondering if anyone else here has had a problem with the tensioners going bad at an early age, and if so, did you have any luck getting VW to replace it, or pay for catastrophic damage to the engine. I'm just puzzled, the car seems engineered and built very well, so how could they screw up on one of the most important parts in the engine, and then continue to produce defective ones until it gets the reputation that the shops are telling me about? So now I'm back to driving my 17 year old Cadillac for a few days, it has a horrible crash test rating, but it has 242,000 miles on it, and it's never had any catastrophic failures, or even left me on the side of the road, except for the two times let it run out of gas, but that wasn't the car's fault.
. I did have a few minutes of warning, but I thought the ticking/thumping noise was coming from the alternator, or A/C clutch, and I was on my way to work, so I didn't think another mile or two would kill the alternator, etc. So you can imagine my surprise when the engine sudenly got very loud and lost power, along with the CEL illuminating. I thought I was doing the right thing by getting the timing belt and tensioner replaced, as the car had 117,000 miles, and there was no record of it being done. So now I paid $1100 to get that done as "preventative maintenance", and it broke anyway! The shop that I had it towed to said they've had alot of problems with the tensioners on these engines, and that VW should be responsible, as a premature failure of this type could only be a manufacturing/design defect. So I'm wondering if anyone else here has had a problem with the tensioners going bad at an early age, and if so, did you have any luck getting VW to replace it, or pay for catastrophic damage to the engine. I'm just puzzled, the car seems engineered and built very well, so how could they screw up on one of the most important parts in the engine, and then continue to produce defective ones until it gets the reputation that the shops are telling me about? So now I'm back to driving my 17 year old Cadillac for a few days, it has a horrible crash test rating, but it has 242,000 miles on it, and it's never had any catastrophic failures, or even left me on the side of the road, except for the two times let it run out of gas, but that wasn't the car's fault.
