Quote Originally Posted by garrycol View Post
The problem I have is that the 7 year time limit for the belts is coming up but I have only covered less than half the required 160,000km.

So the big risky question is - do you or do you not change on time??? The requirement is obviously there for a reason - a real need to change or just to protect the manufacturer from legal action resulting from an older belt failure that had low kms on it.

Rich - how was your old belt - contaminates from the engine such as grease and oil etc.

Oh - you only mentioned the timing belt - what about the harder belt to change - the fuel pump belt at the back of the engine - needs to be changed at the same time.

Garry
I changed my belt late at 190,000km. I had it all apart at 166K ready to change, but tried to rattle the lower bolt undone and couldn't - THANK GOD FOR THAT - I HADN'T REALISED AT THAT POINT THE LOWER PULLEY HAD NO KEYWAY!! Nearly got myself in some deep s**t there! The belt at that point looked fine. The silicone compound that it is made of showed no wear or cracks whatsoever, the belt was as thick as the new one, and still had all the factory barcodes/model nos/etc printed on it. No obvious contaminates. It looked fine so I decided to risk it a bit longer while I did a bit more digging on the oil pump issue. Looks no different now. If you bend it at an extreme angle backward you can see the light coloured material on the underside is starting to crack. Really that's about all. The pulleys were all functioning as per brand new, had good resistance and absolutely no movement. The window on the tensioner had moved about 2mm out of alignment to cope with the stretch of the belt.

Personally for a parts cost of about $250 I would just change the belt at the 7 year interval. It is very straightforward to change. It's the oil pump that turns it into a larger scale job.

I didn't do the rear belt as at approximately 100k the HPFP was changed as part of the EU4 pump recall and part of that is changing the belt. I'm happy to leave that till up to 250K seeing as it is not dangerous to the engine if it breaks. Also I have seen such belts run balance shafts etc well past 350K.