TIMING BELT TROUBLE

One belt snap can cost you big!

Your engine has an internal timing belt that synchronizes your camshaft(s) with the crankshaft and on some engines it can cause devastating engine damage if it breaks. Some engines are called interference engines (7 out of 10 vehicles on the road) which means that the valves in the cylinder head will “interfere” with the piston if not synchronized correctly. In layman’s terms it means this… if the belt breaks the piston keeps moving and the valve stops and they crunch into each other.

This can commonly cause upwards of $2,000 to repair, so we recommend replacing your timing belt at the manufacturer recommended intervals which is usually somewhere between 60,000 to 100,000 miles.

The photos you see here are of a 2004 Chevrolet Aveo that had a belt break which caused it to bend the valves. The total cost to repair, $2,369.00. The second picture is of a timing belt from another vehicle that quite frankly we couldn’t believe the engine was still running and hadn’t snapped already! Typically when we to a timing belt replacement the belt that we replace does not look this bad, you just never know when it will break.

We always recommend replacing the water pump, and any idler and tensioner pulleys and any related parts that may fail later after the belt has been installed. Typical cost of a timing belt replacement  is normally below $1,000 (total cost depends differs per vehicle).

Call or email us to find out what the manufacturer recommends for your vehicle