question.

[jettabrendan]

has anyone had any luck with this website? everything seems like its a good deal. http://www.dieselvw.com/16SuperTimingBeltSet.htm

i want to order this kit. sorry if its been asked and if this is the wrong forum.

[Vincent Waldon]

We should probably put this question in the FAQ.  :wink:

The vendor's name is "prothe"... if you do a quick search you'll find lots of opinions.

[8v-of-fury]

I ordered his $74 kit (minus the belt and tensioner) lol

The tools are in my opinion really good quality. Mind you the cam lock was just a piece of aluminum.... However it was the perfect size piece i ddint have

Dunno if i would trust my entire engine on his belt and tensioner though...

[vanbcguy]

Tools I'd buy...  They'll probably last through several dozen timing jobs without issue.

Timing belt, no way in hell...  A Conitech timing belt set costs about $75 (belt and tensioner).  Failure of a timing belt will cost you more like $750 by the time you fix all the damage.

[vanbcguy]

Hey, Prothe has downpipes!!

http://www.dieselvw.com/1H0253087HDownpipe.htm



(that's a Mk III one btw)

[8v-of-fury]

yeah, but would the one he ships look as good as that? or even be all there? that was mean.... lmao

[vanbcguy]

At $119 I honestly couldn't care less if it was just plain steel or painted pink with yellow polkadots...

I don't think anyone has ever had trouble getting stuff from Prothe...

I'd never ever ever buy an injection pump from him, I'd never buy injection pump internal parts, I have bought injectors and wouldn't do it again, but he does have a lot of stuff I would buy.  I mean, how much can you screw up a piece of exhaust pipe?

Complicated stuff with lots of high precision small parts, no way.  Simple stuff that's pretty hard to mess up, no problem.

[8v-of-fury]

yo make a good point Bryn.

I was being like everyone else.. PROTHE OMG NO!

Im sure its hard to get quality parts and sell them for any sort of profit these days.. he's doing a swell job

[Smokey Eddy]

I'm happy with Pete's business. The customer service is less than desirable but without him/his business i wouldn't have a car!!! Or if i did it wouldn't be what it is today. nothing close.

I think Mr.Rothenbacher would benefit his company by removing the items that will bring people to think ill of his company. ie. the injection pumps, tensioners that will screw your engine, injectors that don't work very well and so on. They just give people with more insight the impression that he doesn't care what happens to people and their cars, just if he gets his money. Which i highly doubt is Mr. R's intention.

His other stuff. Well worth it in my opinion. With some minor smoothing out and a bit of dremel work his AAZ head and valves (With lapping of course) have worked great for me so far. Good compression. Pushing 1,000 km now and the mileage is still going up.


The only thing im very weary of are the 9$ ring sets i bought.... very weary....
My only reasoning is ... his are 9$ US... two shops in my town, the vw shop = $60/set... the Lordco = over $200/set



EDIT: Another change that would make Prothe seem more ... or ... less dodgy would be isntead of saying "this part fits all passats, jetta's..." and so on ... it should say what item it is intendted for.
Example. The downpipe there... he says it's for 1.9 aaz, passat, jetta, ect.
What he REALLY should say is what TURBO it's for and perhaps body style.
even if he adds that line in addition to what is there... it would solve so many of his return problems. (People getting items that DONT work for their car)

[8v-of-fury]

Well put Edna.

:P

[burn_your_money]

I'll never deal with Prothe for the simple reason that he has, and continues to screw people over with his "rebuilt" injection pumps. I don't think a person like that deserves my hard earned money.

[jettabrendan]

all i pretty much want out of that set is the tools, i have a brand new belt and tensioner, but it is good to have spares.

[rabbitman]

I bought his IP bushings, I figured they're probably good metal and they pressed in very tight. They also need to get reamed to the proper size, so how can I go wrong unless I messed up when reaming 'em?

Check out his 1.6na to turbo coversion kit, complete minus the oil lines for $450. The problem is the intake mani is off of a TDI so it has the "D" ports, you'd have to do a lot of porting to get decent flow. It does show it in the pics though and the description says TDI manifolds included, it should say that the ports don't match up though. I can see some ignorant person buying it assuming it'll fit though.

[clbanman]

Just for information purposes, Prothe's eBay listings for pumps now have an added section that reads: "In March 2009 I set up a VW 1.6 diesel engine in my shop to further test (after the calibration) all outgoing injector pumps. So this pump has been tested on a running engine to ensure 100% quality. This pump has already been installed and run on a real VW 1.6 diesel engine, so you can be 100% sure that the pump will work 100% right out of the box."

[Smokey Eddy]

I'll never deal with Prothe for the simple reason that he has, and continues to screw people over with his "rebuilt" injection pumps. I don't think a person like that deserves my hard earned money.

I hear ya Tyler. Loud and clear... but do you think he means to do it?

My understanding is that he's probably got some ties to china and he can get really cheap crap sent to his big warehouse. And he's like ebay... just packs and ships and takes a %.

Do you think he does much wrenching him self though?

He must get such an incredible pa lava dealing with people upset and angry with his rebuilt pumps... you'd think he would stop trying to sell them...

I fall back onto saying, he says his parts fit such and such a year/model... when IN OUR MINDS it should say "this part goes with this part" not ... "this part goes with this car". Stuff like that makes me think he's his own Ebay and not really a parts dealer who knows anything about the parts he's selling just a rough description and a picture to boot.