Has anyone actually had a cambelt failure?

[200bhp]

I'm in the market for a cheapo car at the moment and have a few on the ebay watching list. Many of these have reached the point at which they should really have a cambelt change - But there is no record of it being done.

At the sub £1k price point a cambelt change is a sizeable percentage of the car's value - But is it really worth it?

I've always changed the cambelt as soon as I've bought a car just for extra peace of mind. However I do just 5-8k miles a year.

So is it just manufacturers scaremongering and generating work for themselves?

[200bhp]

If there is no paperwork to show it's been changed - Is there any reliable way of knowing how good the belt and associated parts are?

[200bhp]

carl0s said:

I've always feel a sense of, erm, smugism when I consider the likelihood of catastrophic belt failure on my cars:

non-interference engine - Supra mk4
chain-drive - ls2
chain-drive - bmw m54

I was hoping to try to get some kind of cambelt mileage record on my first Supra, but it came to an unnatural end, and got replaced by one that had already had its belt done!

Interesting........ I'm looking at a GS300 Lexus which I believe has the same basic engine as a Supra. Any idea of the engine code for the non-interference version?