Timing belt wear

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12-28-2011, 10:58 PM
YnotVW

Timing belt wear

So, as I posted a week or so ago about going to change the belt on my wifes 04. Well, today I pulled off the upper cover to inspect and start the job. To my surprise the belt looks absolutely NO different than 15-17K miles ago when I replaced the headgasket. This belt was installed by the dealer after the first one snapped at ~70K. But it looks to be a very high quality belt(i.e. similar to the Gates I have to install.)

Does anyone have any comparison pictures of a new vs the one they took off? Or any ideas of where the weak point is on the belt.
12-29-2011, 12:22 AM
thehunterooo

How many miles is on this belt?

When I had mine changed at 56k, it looked good to me in comparison to the new belt, I would just live and die by the 60k rule (that you broke :D).
12-29-2011, 01:05 AM
YnotVW

This belt has about 60K on it. (PS I didn't break the rule, my wife did before I met her.)
12-29-2011, 01:37 AM
gonezythr

Quote:

Originally Posted by YnotVW

This belt has about 60K on it. (PS I didn't break the rule, my wife did before I met her.)

Change it, for piece of mind.
12-29-2011, 01:39 AM
thehunterooo

Let you wife read that then, sorry to call you out :D

I would change it to be safe, you can just never know, though NY has ran his for an insane distance, if you like to gamble, keep on rolling with it, but I would think the teeth would be the weak point if I had to choose so I can answer your question, I just can get over the fact that my belt looked the way it did, wish I did not chnage it ;)
12-29-2011, 01:56 AM
YnotVW

Quote:

Originally Posted by thehunterooo

Let you wife read that then, sorry to call you out :D

She's been in the loop on this already. And she knows what she did.
12-29-2011, 02:18 AM
thehunterooo

That is good, too bad it happened :( Did you ever tell us about it (what did you have to fix, etc...)
12-29-2011, 05:32 AM
YnotVW

I never went into the details of her timing belt because it was before I met her. I have done the headgasket after the thermo housing popped. I went through some of those details in my intro thread
12-29-2011, 09:55 PM
YnotVW

I took comparison pics today while I changed the belt. I will post them later so you all can see. There was some surprising differences that at first glance were not noticable.