ahmed82

I bought it from a dealer with 150k. he told me that the timing built is good and it is a life time. and no need to change. Is this right?

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

the timing belt should be changed at 105k miles or 7 years. which ever comes first.

if you are on the original belt, you are on borrowed time as it can snap and catastrophic engine damage may occur

thoiboi

They're made of rubber

ahmed82

Thanks for help. So is there a way to know if I have to change it now or
not?

thoiboi

To be better safe than sorry, I would change it .

ahmed82

do you have idea on how much does it cost

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

I would scour the carfax report to see if it was changed.

if its the original belt, you are on borrowed time.
it can snap today, tomorrow, or next week. who knows. as thoiboi stated, its rubber! and rubber deteriorates

ahmed82

no evidence that it was changed on the carfax. so how much does it cost to change it?

thoiboi

About $34.50

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

price ranges depending on who does the work.
you could get it done for as low as $300-400 or as high as $1100-1200.

Honda dealerships usually charge less than Acura dealerships
and then independent mechanics will charge less than both!

ahmed82

Thanks for help

SuperGreg

You could remove the front timing belt inspection cover and take a look, although IMO all this will tell you is if it looks horrible or not, at this mileage you probably won't be able to identify if it's been replaced or not. If it has strips of material coming off you're on borrowed time, if there are no cracks in the rubber at all and everything looks fine it might be OK for a while.

The cover can be a pain to get off though, and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you haven't done much work on cars.

Also FYI even if the belt is OK, if the service was never done or if the auto tensioner wasn't replaced that's just as likely to go bad and cause the belt to skip teeth.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

^i forgot about the tensioner!
its hydraulic and over time it weakens!

also, the timing belt cover was the hardest thing for me to get off. lol I wouldnt advise taking it off, I couldnt get mine back in and had to cut a corner off, defeating the whole purpose of a cover

ahmed82

Thanks for you all

dwa375

So I took my 03 TL to about 125K on last timing belt change, just had it replaced this week. I asked the shop to save the old belt for me - it looks like new! I mean NEW!!! How can one tell where the deterioration is? Has anyone had one snap?

dwmead86

Oddly enough my local Acura dealer charges less than the Honda dealer. What is even more odd is they are owned by the same company.

SuperGreg

Yeah, they usually look fine.

The belts are lined with kevlar fibers inside and snapping isn't usually what happens. AFAIK, usually you lose a tooth or two and skip timing. Of course then the belt can get shredded by the gears as it slides out of place.

Way back in the day I went way way over the mileage with a Geo Storm, and the belt was shredding itself and making tons of noise so I replaced it LOL.

ahmed82

So what is the benefit of changing it?

thoiboi

Don't bother just drive it until your engine explodes and buy a new car

01tl4tl

failure of the timing belt = MASSIVE damage to the pistons and valves as they run into each other!
End result- you have to go buy a used engine and start over~ no kidding

carfax only knows what its been told- private shops dont report basic service like this.

You can look at the bolt heads for timing cover, untouched or slightly scraped by tools?
Many a TL gets sold at 120-150 kmiles when owner is told 1200$ at the dealer = time for a new car.

Cant tell anything from the outer side of belt, inner is the working side and must be turned inside out to see between the ribs = making the inspection ports useless for anything but knowing the belt is still in there!

SuperGreg

It doesn't have to snap to jack the engine up - if the teeth degrade and skip some teeth it's just as bad. And sometimes, they do snap. It's just not as simple as looking at it from the outside and seeing that it's intact.

And really, saying to change the belt at 100K doesn't mean that the belt is going to go bad at 100,001 miles. It just means that 100K is well within the normal life expectancy so you virtually never have problems before that, and recommending the belt get changed at that mileage means very few people having issues with the belt. The actual amount of miles above 100K before the belt goes could vary significantly from car to car depending on conditions.