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HELP! Timing Belt Paranoia
rkornegay
Member Posts: 1
I have a '99 Mitsubishi Galant V6 with 70,000 miles on it. The manual recommends changing the timing belt at 60,000 miles, but I haven't had it done yet. My cousin recently messed his engine up with a broken belt, which got me thinking about my car.
I'm just recovering from a job layoff, so I just can't afford to get the belt changed until around the end of next month. But every time I drive my car, I'm fearful that the trip might be the fateful one that my belt breaks. Am I overreacting?
Do Mitsus have good belt durability? I'm hoping to last one more month.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I'm just recovering from a job layoff, so I just can't afford to get the belt changed until around the end of next month. But every time I drive my car, I'm fearful that the trip might be the fateful one that my belt breaks. Am I overreacting?
Do Mitsus have good belt durability? I'm hoping to last one more month.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Comments
Sure it's a risk. Probably the odds are best for you at 61K and get progressively worse.
The best I could say that if it happened within the next month of driving, you'd have fairly bad luck going for you. I'm sure many people get away with it, but there's no way to know where you are going to land on the bell curve of probabilities, is the problem.
but if all you have is some dust, a little rubber or fabric debris, and you don't see the belt chunked out, it's OK.... now.
I replaced the belts in my ranger 2.3L-four religiously every 50-thousand miles or thereabouts. just to have it done. course, I was working, and it does make a difference on how much preventative maintenance you can afford.
I dunno about the quality of the belt, though. It's only as good as the manufacturer who won the low bid on that contract made it to be!
As for belts in general, I've only had one car that had a timing belt...an '88 Chrysler LeBaron turbo coupe. It called for changes every 60K miles, but we let it go to 90K before a change. It needed new seals, too...crankshaft and camshaft, because it was leaking a bit of oil. The 2.2 was a non-interference engine though, meaning that if the belt failed, it only stranded you, and didn't demolish the engine. Still a bad thing if you're doing 80 in the fast lane in heavy traffic, though!
if you have an interference engine, you have a different experience when the belt slips or breaks. you hear a loud THUNK! and start sliding on locked tires. that engine won't turn again until major repairs or replacement is done.
Aren't most older V-8's and V-6'es interference engines?
The only time I actually got to see a timing belt go bad was on a VW Fox. Last year, I was renting to someone who was turning out to be a real pain, so I kicked him out. On the last weekend he was going to be there, he parked his car, and when he went to start it it wouldn't start. Perfect timing, eh? Turns out it was the timing belt. Non-interference engine, thankfully. He replaced the belt himself (mostly...I helped him a little bit...I wanted that sucker GONE!!) I remember the way it failed...the little "teeth" were actually falling off the belt, but the outer part of it was fine.
He put a new belt in that cost about $10.00. I don't remember if the oil seals were leaking or not, but he didn't bother to replace them. I have a feeling that his little repair isn't going to last forever.
I'll also admit that I was a little envious that the little #$%! was able to do a repair like that. I don't think I would've had the guts to take on something like that myself! But then it took him about 2 days to do it, and if you could see the way his hands and knuckles were bruised up, and the words that were coming out of his mouth...
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
since two items are not able to occupy the same space at the same time, when they come together under force of dozens or hundreds of horsepower (action/reaction, the entire chain of rotating parts will expend all its power against the greatest restriction,) things get bent and broken real fast. as the valves are going down while the pistons are going up, and both have to finish their travel before they reverse direction, they mung each other up pretty good.
I helped a work buddy fix his beater Chevette a few years ago on a moderately warm February weekend (20 degrees), and his timing belt had not only shed a couple inches worth of teeth due to oil rot, the belt was separated into several sections. learned a lot and passed a little on that day, as well... some of which was the timing marks were not right on the engine, the camshaft was 180 degrees off, so somebody had shade-treed that thing before and got the cam gear on wrong. just humped the cam over two thunks and it took right off after I slid the belt back on.
doesn't work like that with an interference engine... we would have had to do a valve replacement for sure, even turning it over by hand, and almost certainly the top of the piston would have been damaged, with the drill being to replace the piston at that point and check all the other running parts and the crank bearings before assuming anything about being able to fix the alignment and try again.
it would be a good idea to check. the belt tables at
http://www.gates.com/brochure.cfm?brochure=981&location_id=54- 0
will mark interference engines with a star. if you're there, and you have to ask questions, have a shop do it.
not that I am morally and socially agahst at the thought of somebody zooming past me on the road and cutting in quickly, mind you... but it ain't me and I like my stuff solid and engineered to last darn near forever.
pushrods that have a better torque curve for towing are more my style. there's still something in the market for me, and I'm happy.
but if anybody does have a spare zoomie convertible I can have for summers that doesn't need work, let me know
Not that I want to experience it first-hand anytime soon!
Also, did older engines used to handle it better when the timing chain broke? It just seems like, in the past, I didn't hear about timing failures totally destroying the engine like they do today. Maybe a valve here and there, but not the whole system!
If the t-belt breaks in a non-interference engine, you just have to react quickly to coast to the side of the road, as it will stop running.
For a couple of hundred bucks, I usually also wait until the timing belt is due (per manufacturer specs) before changing it...but I don't try to extend it a whole lot.
I am really glad they are mostly going back to using chains. Timing belts are a needless annoyance.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
I'd imagine for people who have kept a car 300-400K miles or more, there's a chance they would have gone through a timing chain or two, isn't there? Years ago, I found a '72 Impala 'vert with a 350 that I wanted to buy. My neighbor, who's a real Chevy head, warned me that at around 125-150K miles, 350's of that era usually needed a new timing chain.
Timing chains are probably just like everything else...once upon a time they were over-engineered to the point you rarely had to worry about them, but with fuel concerns and such, they had to make them lighter and more fragile in more recent times. Of course, technology has allowed them to make them more durable, but then that still gets offset by the need to make them lighter, so it's a draw, more or less.
(2) even if the change interval is 150K (I have never had to change one on old Toyotas I have had, but say for the sake of argumant), that is still longer than any belt would go, and the price is almost the same to change it when that time comes (chain costs a little more, labor is the same)
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
I suspect, not having done any teardown or destructive testing on an interference engine, is that you either shred the belt and you keep moving valves, although with increasing synchronism problems, until metal on metal stops it... or the belt snaps, and intertia will carry the cam around one more time, until metal on metal stops it.
remember, you are going to bend over valves like badly hit nails, and possibly punch through the tops of a piston or two, worst case being the belt fails under acceleration. if you have a bad pin or rod, it might snap and the engine roll a few more degrees until the next cylinder gets it.
but I don't think you're going to be able to turn it over with a wrench and a 30-plus sized mm socket by hand after an interference timing belt gives out any time before the heads come off.
Anyway, the engine didn't hang or bind, and could afterward be turned easily with the starter or a wrench. The camshaft stopped turning while the engine was at idle and there was no drama or sound at all. The engine just died. All 4 exhaust valves were bent, requiring a rebuild of the head. The pistons were not damaged at all. One mechanic said I could have been unlucky enough to have it happen at high revs, but that was unusual. Stresses on the belt were actually worse at idle.
Belts today are a lot better, but can still break or (more likely) strip teeth.
Speaking of teeth, one thing I learned from the 2nd failure was to closely inspect the teeth on the crank and cam pulleys. They can wear and cause a very premature belt failure.
Andre, not to scare you, but I remember Pontiacs as being one of the worst on timing gears. The plastic tipped gears wear out after about 70,000 miles as I recall. The replacement gears don't have the plastic and rarely go bad.
Trouble is, the plastic breaks off and gets into the oil pan where they can plug up the oil pickup.
If your Catalina has over 100,000 miles, it's *probably* been replaced at some point.
with the all-steel replacement timing set installed a day later, I didn't notice any extra noise. but having changed something inconvenient, I was suddenly noticing every other little wobble, squeak, and hiccup the car exhibited, and probably had for months or years.
two months of that, I was in a new ranger pickup.
Years ago, I knew a guy with a late 60's Olds Delta 88. I think it had the nylon mesh thing. Anyway, it ended up going bad, and did a good little number on the engine. And my '82 Cutlass Supreme 231 decided to lose all oil pressure one day. When we pulled the pump gears out (real easy on a 231 'cuz they're in front...no need to drop the oil pan), they were all chewed up and there were little metal bits in the oil. I just thought it was the engine in general self-destructing, but someone mentioned it was probably the mesh gear. Funny thing was, when I bought that car, one of my supervisors, an aerospace engineer, predicted that it would go bad between 70-90K miles. He'd had an early 80's Bonneville 231 that did the same thing. Sure enough, mine did it at 73K miles! I hate it when my boss is right!
I think the 60K estimate is mainly a CYA type of thing. Most of them *won't* fail at 60K miles, but at some point beyond that. A select few will fail before that, but hopefully not enough to cause any bad publicity.
We had the belt changed in my '88 LeBaron at 90K miles, and it called for 60K intervals. That car had a mix of city and highway miles.