Dea_944t

Where does the 3 years/30Kmiles come from, a tech bulletin from Porsche?
My original maintenance book says 80000km (50000 miles) and there's actually no specified time limit.
I think most people over here changes every 4-5 years.

/Dea

Crackership

For what it's worth, and I'm not saying it's worth much... but I once had a Porsche mechanic that was factory trained on the 944/951 and looked/sounded like he'd been working at the Porsche dealer since the 356 was new tell me that the N/A was usually fine to about 40-45k or so, but all the turbos he'd seen with broken timing belts had gone almost exactly 37k from the time of the last change. I think there's got to be some other factors at work too though... like which tensioner version a particular car has, and how often the belt is re-tensioned, for instance.

I don't know, but I've always erred on the side of caution and just changed it at 30k... it's a cheap part, it's not that difficult of a job (as far as timing belts go) and I like my car

-Dave

porshhhh951

No way I'd drive a porsche that had been sitting that long without doing a belt change. Is it really worth that risk? For what, a simple belt.

Laust Pedersen

Whenever the timing belt discussion comes up with ever decreasing service interval beliefs, I think about my Toyota MR2 which I bought new in 1985.

It was a really nice car, which (very often) was spinning so freely at 7000 rpm. As usual, I extended the parts renewal as much as my gut could tolerate and I went to 130k miles before the first timing belt change. Its teeth were beginning to show very small cracks and it could probably last another 20k miles.

The car died a natural death of old age (dull paint, synchromesh weak, gear disappeared, etc.) at 230k miles with its still well functioning timing belt.

In the equation of deciding when to do the belt change, I assign a certain risk of not getting the optimal belt tension, so for example changing it every 5k miles may very well be riskier (for breakage) than changing it every 60k miles.

Another factor in the equation is the consequences of a breakage (balance belt vs. timing belt breakage).

If the consequences of a broken timing belt are too scary, then this may be a good solution.

Laust

CarbonRevo

I don't think you really had a choice on it selling or not. Your asking price of $15,000 is a little on the steep end based on the pictures.

And yes, I would be worried about those belts given that the car sat like it did. Also, 3 years sitting on a shelf versus 3 years on a car is apples to oranges. The belt will go through many heat cycles, loads and harmful oils while on the car. For someone having wrenched these since the 90's, you should know that...

George D

Happens often. Good luck with the car.