Really ignorant question about timing belt replacement

[Craigd2599]

Gear drive would be best. Accurate as heck, failure free and makes everyone think you have a blower under the hood

[wickid54]

Gear drive would be best. Accurate as heck, failure free and makes everyone think you have a blower under the hood

oh. and the sound a gear drive makes.
sweet sweet music.

[LamboSE5]

Timing belt...timing chain- Don't think it would really matter. What's over-looked is often the tensioner- it will break too after 70K miles and cause the engine to go.

Yea!
It seems garages don't suggest rollers/tensioner. They do your belt and send you on your way.

[rspi]

My brother-in-law just lost a 3rd belt in less than 3 years. After the 1st they did not replace rollers or tensioner. 45 Days later a roller went and they had the please to do the head and all again at their cost. Several months later the hydraulic tensioner failed and destroyed the head again. When will they learn.

[tomatoes4all]

On the subject of belt vs. chain for the timing: Land Rover Tdi engines have timing belts, which used to self-destruct sometimes not even halfway into their recommended change interval. The pulley would be mis-alligned (courtesy of the legendary quality control at the Land Rover factory) causing the belt to rub on the cover and so wear through very quickly or the rivets would snap, and cause a mechanical disaster immediately. After many of these incidents a very smart company, called Zeus, designed a set of alloy interlocking sprockets that would be installed in place of the pulleys and so drive camshaft, water pump etc and never wear out. It cost a bundle, apparently, but last for ever. After market does not mean sub-standard in this case..
The newer Td5 engines have a chain, for looong life... Cheers, Erik.

[rmmagow]

One thing I have always wondered about, the US government interferes so much with its day-to-day regulations, why didn't they say something to the affect, no belts on interference engines. How many perfectly good cars have been junked because of a lousy 50 dollar belt? I owned a 76 Honda Civic, it broke the timing belt and nothing happened except for a tow, non-interference engine. My 85 Mercedes diesel has 200K on its chain driven engine. The chain gets replaced if it stretches too much but with regular oil changes it'll go practically forever.

[LamboSE5]

My brother-in-law just lost a 3rd belt in less than 3 years. After the 1st they did not replace rollers or tensioner. 45 Days later a roller went and they had the please to do the head and all again at their cost. Several months later the hydraulic tensioner failed and destroyed the head again. When will they learn.

That's absolutely horrible rspi

[regent]

That's right. The question in the title of this thread may seem ignorant but we can make an educated decision and have all interference engines banned, period.
(Or... at least learn the maintainance basics)