Scuba Steve

I think he meant how long, as in years, months, ...

I'm curious too. My belts and water pump hit 3 years / 10,000 miles this november.

iloveporsches

They were changed in November 2002.

Yummybud924

yeah that sucks, my biggest worry is breaking the t-belt. I guess replacing the head and doing the maintenance isn't that hard but replacing the pistons or doing and engine swap would bee too much for me and I'd probably sell the car for parts or maybe wait for used engine and get help from someone to swap it in.

still it's not going to be cheap......

I was wondering does anyone know if the tbelt retension is strictly milliage based or time bases as well.

I replaced my tbelt a few months ago and got it tensioned but I haven't driven the car that much because I need to fix a few things so it only has like 400 kms on it since the belt change a few months ago and I have to get it retensioned at 3000 kms.

One thing I don't get is that gates instruction (with porsche script on it) says to check teh tension of the new belt at 3000-4000 kms for all cars except in canada. In canada it's 3200-4000km.

I thought that was interesting....... doesn't make much sense to me that they add 200km for checking a canadian car.

SD Porsche Fan

Sorry to hear about the t-belt failure. My belts will be 3 years old this fall. Probably time for some maintenance.

PorscheDoc

3 years or 45k miles is what I follow. I truly think age is worse than mileage on the belts.

El Commandante

Steve, I still need to do mine too, but I have a little more time than previously thought, i finally deciphered the sloppy handwriting on my receipts and I have about 8000 miles left before I need to change them. Just PM me when you want to do it. I already have all my parts, but not tensioning tools

Yummybud924

also maybe it's just a bad desing in this car? I know a lot of people that drive hondas etc with interference engines and most people have no clue that they should replace their timing belt

no one else I know of replaces their timing belt every 3 years......If I tell someone that I have to replace the belt every 3 years, they'll think I'm crazy an making things up.

Dr.Porsche

I agree,
How can this belt not last three years. The belt in my vacuum cleaner lasts three years. I use my car for the track only. I have probably only put 3000 miles on the car since the last belt. But, of course I'm doing mine this spring. Sorry had to vent

jyoon

what does the manual say on the belt change? 3 years seems too often. i just pulled the covers on mine since i don't have any records. everything looked good, but i'll probably change them soon to have piece of mind.

PorscheDoc

It takes an hour at the most to change a timing and balance shaft belt. If you are doing it every 3 years, you don't need to change the rollers and pump every 3 years, you can go at a 2-1 ratio. So every 6 years you are doing the pump and rollers. I've seen too many belts break at 4 years of age, so that's just the rule of thumb I go by.

PorscheDoc

You can not tell the condition of a timing belt by looking at it.

Mike C.

I have a hard time with the notion that 944 belts are made from inferior material compared to Honda, etc. timing belts. Why should they age any faster than Honda belts? Perhaps the Hondas have a better belt tension scheme that requires little in the way of maintenence and so failures due to tension problems are fewer. I think the factory built in some extra conservatism in light of the early problems with belt failures (and warranty issues).

Trucho-951

I think the factory 3 year replacement guideline is probably intended so that there be more frequent/consistent visual inspections of the belts and seals. I'm guessing the main problem with our cars belt setup is that the counter balance seals tend to leak and needless to say oil contaminated belt(s) will not last very long.

If we look at the gear ratios involved we see that there is a 4:2:1 ratio between balance shaft rotation, crankshaft and camshaft. That is to say, when the camshaft has rotated the equivalent to 50,000 miles, the crankshaft has rotated 100,000 miles, and the balance shafts have rotated 200,000 miles, by then, most probably at least one of those seals is probably leaking oil.

Now if the waterpump bearings freeze, that will also cause belt failure in a hurry. Does anyone know what are the signs of a failing waterpump?

iloveporsches

From what I remember reading here and elsewhere, the head and block expand an contrast at different rates on these cars and put additional tension/ stress on the belt.

I am almost 100% sure that this was the cause of my failure.

jyoon

if you look at the timing belt, you can determine several things. you can verify there is no shredding, or misalignments, nothings dragging, etc. i know you can't tell by looks when a belt might snap, but looking at it and seeing nothing appears shredded or cracked does give a little piece of mind. also, i'm not sure how the painted label on the belt wears, but i think you can tell a little about the use from looking at that.