Learned an importance lesson in automative maintenance today....

What car, what engine? Many cars will still only need a belt after they break. "Completely totaling" the engine, even in an interference design, is not the usual outcome, bent valves and damaged guides and pistons, yes, but generally repairable. The bad thing is the if it is an interference engine, the mechanic won't know until it's taken apart, what will be needed to fix it.

That is an oddball that it happened over that 2 weeks. Quite often timing belts last significantly longer than what is recommended by the vehicle manufacturer. Through experience with others, I did not change my 4runner TB until 125k as opposed to the 90k recommended. When I changed it, the belt appeared as good as the brand new one. These belts need to be designed to last a long time. They cannot just fail right after you hit 60k...

Seems like just bad luck on your end...

CTwoodburner said:

That is an oddball that it happened over that 2 weeks. Quite often timing belts last significantly longer than what is recommended by the vehicle manufacturer. Through experience with others, I did not change my 4runner TB until 125k as opposed to the 90k recommended. When I changed it, the belt appeared as good as the brand new one. These belts need to be designed to last a long time. They cannot just fail right after you hit 60k...

Seems like just bad luck on your end...

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As a former mechanic I've replaced hundreds of timing belts. Most fail through the "teeth" shearing away from the belt and most of the many high-mileage belts I've replaced looked "good". I would never depend upon how a belt looked to say it was okay. You're right though, most far exceed their predicted lifetime but pushing it can cost a lot of money if you have an interference engine.

This is why Im glad a lot of manufacturers are going back to chains


BTW - $300 ? Wow that's fairly cheap. Usually you do the water pump and tensioner(s) as well, and its hard to find even a private shop around here that charges less than $60 an hour.....

Same thing happened to my wife's car. "He said we need to replace the belt" says she. "It'll wait a month- we're selling that POS anyway" says I. Blechh

Semipro said:

As a former mechanic I've replaced hundreds of timing belts. Most fail through the "teeth" shearing away from the belt and most of the many high-mileage belts I've replaced looked "good". I would never depend upon how a belt looked to say it was okay. You're right though, most far exceed their predicted lifetime but pushing it can cost a lot of money if you have an interference engine.

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+1. Its the luck of the draw. Many belts do last longer than what they are rated for, but not all. Its not like a fan belt.. looking at it will tell you little. Chains have their problems too, btw, depending on the application. I had about 95kmi on a chain in a Toyota 22RE engine at this time last year and the nylon chain guide broke causing damage to the #1 intake valve. Those parts are rated for 100kmi.

Anyway, if I'm not mistaken, your mechanic can perform a leakdown test to determine if any valves are bent. In these cases interference engine owners do get lucky sometimes.

jharkin said:

This is why Im glad a lot of manufacturers are going back to chains


BTW - $300 ? Wow that's fairly cheap. Usually you do the water pump and tensioner(s) as well, and its hard to find even a private shop around here that charges less than $60 an hour.....

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Yeah, my belt, pump and tensioner were $300 just for the parts.

jharkin said:

This is why Im glad a lot of manufacturers are going back to chains


BTW - $300 ? Wow that's fairly cheap. Usually you do the water pump and tensioner(s) as well, and its hard to find even a private shop around here that charges less than $60 an hour.....

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as long as they keep the nylon coated gears out of the picture it might last. most chain/nylon setups fail between 75 and 100,000 miles. so really not any better with chain vs. belts, unless they use metal gears and lots of oil and not worry about the noise.

Great news Rose

That's great! If the car is high mileage, and these things have never been done before, both the tensioner and idler pulley for the belt should be replaced too, and the water pump. Not a big expense or extra work if its apart already.

homebrewz said:

That's great! If the car is high mileage, and these things have never been done before, both the tensioner and idler pulley for the belt should be replaced too, and the water pump. Not a big expense or extra work if its apart already.

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+1

My Dodge/Cummins is all gear drive & one of the reasons I bought it. I had Isuzu diesels that wouldn't hold timing with the gear belts. Now I just need to get out & replace rear wheel bearings in 10 degree weather, Randy

Has anyone changed their belt on a Honda Pilot? I need to do my wife's and was wondering if this is a big job, what tools and material will be needed? It has about 95K miles on it. Its a 2004 also. Doug

dougcarlo said:

Has anyone changed their belt on a Honda Pilot? I need to do my wife's and was wondering if this is a big job, what tools and material will be needed? It has about 95K miles on it. Its a 2004 also. Doug

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helped a friend do his last year, no big deal, all covered in the Hayne's. We did "make" a tool, a holding bolt for the tensioner. If you are fairly mechanical it is a pretty easy DIY. Took an afternoon.

Here is a FINE walk through... http://www.piloteers.org/forums/18-maintenance/25712-diy-j35a4-timing-belt-replacement.html

Excellent post, thanks

Add my support to the recommendations of homebrewz and fbelec. Replacing those three items now, while that part of the engine is disassembled, will probably save you time, money and inconvenience if you plan to keep the Mitsubishi for another couple of years. John_M

Were those all Honda part numbers or NAPA?

Glad it worked out for you Rose, without you needing to take out a second mortgage. This thread was particularly interesting to me because I completed a timing belt job on my Chevy Aveo last weekend. In doing some research on a throttle body issue, I became aware that 2004-06 Aveos have a history of belts failing, resulting in huge amounts of engine damage. For a short time Chevy even ran a "recall" of '04 belts inside of 60K miles - they paid for the belt - but not the labor :grrr: They apparently wanted to study the condition of some used belts that hadn't failed. So, because I was way beyond the 60K mile change point, this immediately became my new #1 priority. I did the full job - belt, 2 pullys, water pump, and also a serpentine belt. I was surprised (no, actually shocked) by the condition of the belt. With 94K miles on it, the old belt looked like it had just come out of the package. Not a stress crack on it, or for that matter, no mark of any kind. I could have put it in the new belt box, and brought it back as unused :lol: I respect Semipro's experience, so today I tried to poke/pry a few teeth on the belt. Nothing moved, or gave any indication of maybe separating or cracking anytime soon. My Niece's husband helped a lot on the job, and offered the opinion that maybe it's typically one of the pullys that actually fails instead of the belt. If the bearings in a pully seize up, then the belt will shread up as a result. Looking at a shreaded belt it would probably be hard to tell that all of the damage happened in just a few seconds, instead of wearing out over time. After seeing this, I will never replace a belt without also replacing all of the related pullys. JMHO, based only on a sample size of one.

dougcarlo said:

Has anyone changed their belt on a Honda Pilot? I need to do my wife's and was wondering if this is a big job, what tools and material will be needed? It has about 95K miles on it. Its a 2004 also. Doug

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Should take you about 6 hours, its not hard.

Might want to do the cam and crank seals while its apart to.
Your choice really.

But for sure do replace the water pump and tensioner, along with the belt.

If it were at my shop for this, expect it to be about an $800 bill, including parts, add a little more if wanting new seals to.

That should give you a rough cost estimate as well.

But if you have reasonable wrenching skills, its a DIY item.

Oh and Honda recomends changing it at 7 years, or 105,000 miles, whichever comes first. Under normal use that is, earlier if in extremely cold climates.

Just be thankful none of you own a Jetta TDI for one of these wallet draining "service" calls.

Dave