has anyone done this before ?? Maybe we can produce a clean bell curve... also, anyone know a good Porsche transaxle guy anywhere between Charleston, SC and Mass area who is good with timing belts, and can spot any other kind of trouble... I am thinking with the hard driving that I did last spring out west, and now at 27 k and 2 years.

and DON'T MISS THIS VIDEO !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0mL_ViBWes

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i think age has more to do than miles. Ive seen plenty of belts w/ little miles on them break because of dry rot and age. I change mine every year.

 

i changed mine in 2006 because it appeared to have the original belt (car sat for 7 years) at 66000 miles. belt was still in good shape though.

im still on that one but i think ill be changing it next weekend, 3.5 years so far without issue

 

xsboost90: "i think age has more to do than miles..."



indeed.

 

Age over miles.

 

Probably both. How do you know the age of the 'new' ones in the box?

 

Time under tension and heat counts more than time in the box.

 

Lots of variables... Has timing belt manufacture changed over the last 26 years? New ones might be better in terms of resistance to aging effects (also several different brands). The biggie; were they tensioned properly over the lifetime of the belt? Did the car have an updated water pump installed (with the belt guard)? I believe the belt guard has saved many belts that were too lose and would have otherwise failed...

 

42,000 miles and 2 years of easy driving on a 944S

 

This is my second 944....first thing I did on both when I got them (because of no records):

Change belts, waterpump
chain tensioners (in the case of the S2)

In total, I've probably put about 20,000 (about 8k on the old car and 12k on this one) miles on my 944's with no breakage of belts to date.

The tension and overall condition of the belt is checked about every 3000 miles (with oil changes).

The current belt is comming up on 3 years old...I am considering changing it...since about 1/2 the mileage has been at the track.

 

The critical variable is usually the owner. If the car is well maintained (including rollers, wp etc.) and the owner follows the factory recommended maintenance schedule, failures seem to be exceeedingly rare.

OTOH the words "my belt went" and "I don't know how old/how many miles were on the belt exactly, but [it looked just fine/the PO told me blah, blah, blah/I've aways been lucky at russian roulette/etc]" seem to go together often.

 

My belt is 26k miles old. Oh, and 14 years.

 

dude.

 

Seriously, dude.

 

I had a balance shaft belt fail in about 20k miles / about 2 or 3 years. Though it was probably due to improper tension. It was a conti belt.