SCM:belt change every 8-12 years...

Brian you have to remember. 600 Austrailian dollars equals about 26 US dollars.


Darrell.

 

It's still almost $500 US. I'll still do it happily. I could have a high school kid doing 2 of them a day with an all up cost to me of under $200.

Get a crew doing it, I'll stay home by the pool.

Still more profitable than most of the stuff we do and can be done by unskilled labor.

 

As a professional, what work _really_ requires your practiced hand? In other words, what do you only trust yourself to do?

 

There are few things we do physically that a monkey cannot be trained to do.

It is not what I do, it is what I know.

Knowing specifically how it works and being able to identify, again with great specificity why it is not working that way.

The rest just gets your hands dirty.

 

ROTFLMAO!

Let's see what does Sheehan bad mouth on a regular basis?

Hmmm... Ferraris made after, say, 1974.

Okay, what does Sheehan do for a living?

Mostly broker Ferraris made before, say, 1975.

Funny how it works, eh?

Don't misunderstand. I like Mike. I get a kick out of reading his monthly female dog reports in SCM about what a bad deal newer Ferraris are.

But, you need to understand, I also enjoy listening to Rush Limbaugh.

But that doesn't mean that I take whatever Mike and Rush say as gospel and neither should you.

Dale

 

Oh, and about this whole belt change stuff.

From what I understand (and please correct me Brian if I'm completely off base), the biggest problem is cars that sit up for long periods of time. In addition to a lot of other things that can go bad, the belts tend to get a bit stiff. So when you jump in the car after it has been sitting for a while and go rum, rum, rum. Well, bad things can happen.

Personally, I'm putting in call to AEHASS. Anybody who can get that much into oil will have a blast with belts.

Dale

 

Absolute words of wisdom!

 

Reminds me of that old story about a guy whose car was running badly. Took it to a mechanic who looked at it for a moment, picked up a screwdriver and turned something under the hood. Car then ran perfectly. He told the owner it would be $500. The guy asked, "$500 for just turning a screw?" to which the mechanic replied, "No. $500 for knowing which screw to turn and how far to turn it."

 

Amen to that.

 

Nothing about a car is well served by sitting around and that includes the belts. But they do wear out, and as issustrated by this thread with a few exceptions it does not need to cost a bundle to change them. That is not true with the 348, 355, BB, or TR. The packaging on those cars makes it cost more and it is the packaging that makes people seek them out. We change belts day in and day out on 360's and 550's for a very reasonable amount of money. It is only greed on the part of some companies that produces the horror story costs of operation that we read about.

 

...particularly in the USA... I see ads in UK magazines from shops that claim they will change cam belts in a TR or Boxer for 700 pounds...

 

I'm moving to Brian's neighborhood.....can I sleep in the shop???

He's right though there's more TALK about it than those that just go ahead and DO it.....

 

..the pound is still about 1.8USD?

 

Lots of thing there cost less....move.

 

Most things are LOADS more. The UK is known as 'treasure island' in Europe for how much stuff costs - I import my music gear from Germany at 2/3rds of the price. I bought 3 pairs of Levi's in South Bend Indiana for the price of 1 pair here.

The GB700 will usually be for JUST the belt. Plus tax @ 17.5%. If you want a service as well you will be lucky if it is much under 2000 all in. Thats pretty much $4000 US with todays 1.95 US/GB exchange.

 

Most things are LOADS more. The UK is known as 'treasure island' in Europe for how much stuff costs - I import my music gear from Germany at 2/3rds of the price. I bought 3 pairs of Levi's in South Bend Indiana for the price of 1 pair here.

The GB700 will usually be for JUST the belt. Plus tax @ 17.5%. If you want a service as well you will be lucky if it is much under 2000 all in. Thats pretty much $4000 US with todays 1.95 US/GB exchange.

 

The point is there are many people that are just not happy when anyone else makes a decent wage. They would really be much happier if we quit screwing around and just brought back slavery. It is even sadder when their profession has a great deal of responsibility for a great many goods and services being as costly as they are. Some of them are also quite clueless about the differences in the cost of operating a particular type of business here as opposed to there.

 

I'm really amazed at the amount denial and rationalization for longer belt change intervals. It's getting very old and frankly a big reason I don't pay much attention as a consultant to Ferrari Chat as I once did.....you just don't listen.

Case in point, just did belts on a QV that had only 9000 miles. Belts had not been changed in 5 years. We "HIGHLY" recommended belt job. Customer squirmed, did not want to pay the money but finally agreed after I said take somewhere else for service. Took belts off and watched tensioner bearings literally fall apart.

If you don't want to pay for cam belt change, go buy something with a timing chain! Listen to the experts that take time to help out the amateur mechanics that post here. You understand? The pros that do it for a living like me see more than your own car, heed their advice. It's not the belts that fail, its something else that causes the belts to fail, i.e. tensioner or bearing...friction, slack....conflict oops....whole lot more dinero.

As the saying goes, "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later".

I really don't like having to teach someone the hard way, it is never a good experience, just a costly experience.

 

This place should be remaned www.idontwanttochangemytimingbeltchat.com

or maybe in Franks case allamericanferrarimechanicsareouttoscrewme.com

In any event its bull****.

 

Now that's the best reply I've seen in a timing belt thread

 

Brian, I see your point. I was trying to support your argument by saying the advertised GB700 is not reality.

I agree completely, if a customer does not want to pay for goods/services they are welcome to make/do it themselves. If they don't have the skill they will need the money - or a hobby that requires less of either.

 

I wonder how many here would tell thier kids not to listen to the dentists, that its all BS having to brush twice a day. This is the same BS. Same damn question all the time, why dont Ferrari belts last as long as a Honda? They probably do, its just you dont usually do a minimum of $6K worth of damage when a Honda throws a belt. You have most of the guys here who have spent the greater part of thier lives being mechanics, agreeing with Ferrari's service intervals, or perhaps pushing that a lil bit (belts to 5 years), and then everyone else. And the ones who arent mechanics feel that the mechanics just want to rob your checkbook for nothing.

But its the opposite. Most everyone I have known who is a mechanic, and especially the sports car guys, they take great pride in learning, and trying to keep cars alive and reliable. But mechanics are forever having people argue about maintenence, worried over a big stereo or amplifier instead of fixing the shimmy in the front end, the squealing brakes, or that funny engine sound. I remember a car this MB mechanic I used to know picked up for almost nothing, a late 450SL. He had told the owner it seriously needed a timing chain, but the owner wanted the radio fixed instead. It came back 3 days later on a wrecker with the block cracked after the chain spun around the crank. The owner was so disgusted the car broke he just about let my friend have it for free.

I have been on Fchat for over two years now. In that time I cannot count the cars that have been posted with stripped or broken timing belts, or fried tensioner bearings, and without question, every single one was ran PAST the time or mileage. I know I dont have enough fingers to count them all, and thats just the guys here being honest enough to admit the errors of thier ways. Most of you would go quietly away if you blew a belt, fix your car, and/or sell it off on eBay like nothing ever happened. Why? Because most of us would never pay good money for a car that had munched itself unless we could see evidence it was fixed to good standards, and you gys know it. Some guys here wouldnt touch those cars with a 10 foot pole because it smacks of neglect, and you know that too. But the real fact is this. Changing the belt and bearings on a regular basis (Damn, I sound like a freakin doctor) of between 3 and 5 years, virtually eliminates all occurances of belt failure, regardless of what some hack in a car magazine may say to the contrary.

I think many here are simply pushing the limits based on what someone else got away with, instead of searching for the lowest common denominator.

 

Not to take this too far off topic, but you'd be surprised how often things such as this do happen. As a physician, I hear all of the time from people who don't want blood pressure meds, high cholesterol med etc because they have a friend, cousin, or gardener who never took them and he/she lived to 150 years old. I have many time been accused of being a shill for the pharmaceutical companies (I'm not), padding the bill (I don't). This is nothing exclusive to Ferrari or any other type of auto repair technician.

 

Very true.


I want to grow up to be one of those guys in the papers who is asked on his 100th birthday how he did it and replies "2 packs of cigarettes and a bottle of Bourbon a day".

 

Perhaps we should start referring to tensioner service instead of belt service, putting focus on the cause of belt failure. (?)