So driving home from work Thursday morning I heard a whining coming from the front of my car initially thought water pump on its way out then I lost power steering and the message alternator fault battery not charging on the dash I managed to limp the car home and popped the bonnet and see the belt shredded around the top pulley looked a right mess £883 later its being repaired new belt power steering pump pulleys idlers tensioner etc had the car 3 weeks 

Sorry to hear that Darryl. Auxiliary belts are often ignored, but can cause considerable damage when they part company, particularly when they wrap around the crank pulley and result in cambelt ( if fitted ) jumping - disaster! 
You say you have only had it 3 weeks. Private or trade purchase? If trade, then you should have redress. 
Kind regards,

Gareth. 

It was private sale on inspection I couldn't see any obvious signs of a frayed or dodgey belt really its just one of them unfortunate things just a relief the timing belt was replaced with proof 

Thanks Darryl,

When was the timing belt replaced? Seems odd that whoever renewed the timing belt didn’t renew the aux. belt at the same time. Still, you got away with that one to some extent! 
Kind regards,

Gareth.

Cars on 113k belt changed 92500 service book is in car so when I get it back Monday from my mechanic I'll double check service book to see if aux belt has been changed

Exact same thing happened to me in July. My belt had disintegrated & fortunately fell in pieces onto the under tray. It cost me £70 at Chris Umpelby's VAG indy garage in Bradford for a new belt.  Very Lucky.

Cost me £883 needed new belt pulleys tensioners idlersamd power steering pump as it had ripped the seal out of it why couldn't it of just snapped and fell off rather than wrap itself around everywhere possible 🤬🤬🤬🤬

54 minutes ago, Bigotts said:

Cost me £883 needed new belt pulleys tensioners idlersamd power steering pump as it had ripped the seal out of it why couldn't it of just snapped and fell off rather than wrap itself around everywhere possible 🤬🤬🤬🤬

Sorry to hear that. 

Yeah, not good. Very unlucky.

I had similar happen on my A6 2.0tdi just before Christmas, the idler pulley bearings disintegrate and the pulley falls apart, they will rattle a bit before hand (maybe a couple of weeks maybe longer), if you are fortunate and not going at speed you shouldn't cause too much damage, possibly just the belt and the idler pulley will need replacing. Unfortunately on the 2.0tdi (may be different on other engines) the whole of the front end needs to be put into the service position to get to the idler pulley, which is under tray down, bumper off, headlamps out and core support slid forwards to put it into the service position, if you don't have the slide bolts that VAG and ELSAWIN recommend you can always use 2 of the vertical bolts holding the bumper bar to core support, there are 2 vertical bolts either side, use 1 from each side. The idler pulley bolt is a spline key, it takes about 2.5hrs to strip down, replace idler pulley and belt and refit all the other parts removed, make sure though to mark the position of headlamps to each side with masking tape so as they go back in the correct position and not to turn the headlight adjusters when undoing or redoing up the headlamp securing bolts, otherwise it is bumper off to re-adjust them at a later date

had to do similar. bumper off, service mode.while doing the cambelt changed the water pump aux belt and all the pulleys.are you mentioning the lights and adjusters because it was a learning curve darryl.or just a good tip lol

6 hours ago, alpha omega said:

had to do similar. bumper off, service mode.while doing the cambelt changed the water pump aux belt and all the pulleys.are you mentioning the lights and adjusters because it was a learning curve darryl.or just a good tip lol

As a good tip 

What is 'service mode' the steering pump belt on my 08 C6 Allroad has shredded and I'm going to try and replace it myself from underneath the car and I've read about putting the car into service mode first 

It involves removing parts of the front end to enable better access to get to where the belt is situated. I'd find a VAG indy if I were you & let them check all the pulleys as its probably a failed pulley that has caused it.