scirocco 16v woes

[ajmccaus at gmail.com (Andrew McCausland)]

Wow, what a week it's been. I got the rear brake calipers, distributor,
timing belt and tensioner, oil seals, v-belts, and cooling hoses replaced
last week and the car ran amazingly! For about 15km that is. On Monday I
took it out for a spin and ironically the very problem that I thought I was
avoiding by replacing my timing belt annihilated my cylinder head. The
timing belt tensioner stud somehow dethreaded itself out of the cylinder
head, thus causing the timing belt to come loose and thus ending the 417,000
km life of my intake valves. I called my mechanic and he confirmed this.
Gratefully he offered to fix the problem without charging me labour, and he
was able to get a used head with 180,000km on it for $450. He gave me a $50
credit for my old head, and told me it would have cost about $800 to rebuild
it. This means I seem to be getting it fixed for about $600 including the
head, the gaskets and misc parts. However questions still burn in my mind:
Am I getting a good deal here? Why did he not see that the tensioner stud
was loose when he replaced the belt? Is a $50 credit for a head with bent
valves good or should I rebuild it or sell it elsewhere?

Thanks all for lending an eye to my woes. Sorry about the pics, I'm still
working on it. My wife and I just bought a new house so we've been busy with
that for the last few weeks!

-- 
Andrew McCausland, B.Sc.

1987 Scirocco 16v Black