VW T5 alternator and a/c couplings

If you own a VW T5 (or a Toureg) with the 2.5 litre, 5 cylinder, AXE/AXD/BLJ diesel engine then here's something you need to make sure either has been, or will be done on your van! According to the service manual the following need to be replaced every 150,000 km (93,000 miles ish): Alternator freewheel Air conditioning freewheel Alternator elastic coupling Air conditioning elastic coupling What on earth are these bits?  Basically, rather than the ancillaries being driven by a drive belt they are driven directly from the engine via gears and stuff.  Clever.  Yep, until something like your alternator or air conditioning pump seizes and you end up with a rather noisy, not to mention expensive, mess of an engine with lots of shredded gears and possibly broken camshafts.  Not good. To safeguard against this, VW have put elastic couplings (sometimes called gates couplings, flexible couplings or gates flexible couplings!) between the engine drive and your alternator and a/c compressor which take...
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