Cam-Belt Changes?

[yardelli]

Always amazes me the amount of 'Supercar' Ads for cars for Sale that only have 20 or so thousand miles on but have had new clutches/cam-belts etc etc. Surely they are still basically only an engine at the end of the day? Anyway my Turbo G had all new belts only a couple of thousand miles ago but these were done about 6-7 years ago - the car does very low mileage? Can someone tell me when to change again? Do these belts really need changing frequently purely because of time on the car - current belts probably barely only turned 1000 miles or so?

[lotusguy]

yardelli said:

Always amazes me the amount of 'Supercar' Ads for cars for Sale that only have 20 or so thousand miles on but have had new clutches/cam-belts etc etc. Surely they are still basically only an engine at the end of the day? Anyway my Turbo G had all new belts only a couple of thousand miles ago but these were done about 6-7 years ago - the car does very low mileage? Can someone tell me when to change again? Do these belts really need changing frequently purely because of time on the car - current belts probably barely only turned 1000 miles or so?

Hi,

I'm sorry to be the one tell you, but the service interval has both a time and a mileage component to it. It is 20k miles or two years.

The belt has internal synthetic cording similar to the belts in a tire. As such, it is impossible to judge the belt's integrity merely by visually inspecting it.

In fact, the lower the mileage, the more important it is to stick to the time interval since the cording can acquire a memory which can hasten it's failure once it is put in regular service.

Considering the belt is about $15 and a top-end rebuild can go as high as $3000, it's really very cheap insurance to change it when due.

The same applies to your tires for similar reasons. About 5 years is the longest I would trust my tires. After that, the belt's integrity comes into qustion as well as the rubber compounds hardening which can cause loss of adhesion and the tire's ability to handle heat. Again, spend $500, or risk losing the car and possibly injuring yourself, a passenger or others. The last two sets I replaced had at least 40% of the tread still remaining.

But these are the costs associated with owning a high performance toy. You gotta pay if you wanna play. Happy Motoring!..Jim'85TE