The Timing Belt Myth?

Ferrari recommends changing belts every 30k miles or 5-7 years. Why? I ask this because other manufacturers with rubber timing belts have far longer durations for service.

This inquiry was prompted by two, one owner cars I just came across. One, a 1985 Ferrari 308 and the other a 1986 328. Believe it or not, neither car had EVER had a belt changed and each was running well and driven regularly, ableit not far. Both had belts of more than two decades old and both were under 30k miles. So, while I might not think 20 years is a good interval, what is the truth here? When do the belts really need to be changed? Any chemists or engineers here who can shed light on this? Thanks in advance!

 

Howdy...

Have you got a lot of free time?
A search here will bring up a number of previous discussions... lots of reading material, photos and diagrams.

Greg

 

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The truth is that if what you have said is true then:

1) These owners have been very lucky
2) These owners have completely ignored the manufacturer's service schedules (so what else has not been done?)
3) For the nth time, the belts may fail, but equally likely the tensioner bearings will go.

Belts/bearings go at 5 years, sometimes they last 10 - there is no straight answer, its a lottery, how lucky to you feel?

I.

 

Ban him!

 

Rifledriver's gonna tear you a new one

 

I've read alot of these threads including the negative one about the article in Keith Martin's magizine this month.

I keep hearing about what "ferrari recommends." That article made what I thought was an interesting point, that the 355 owners manual recommended a belt inspection at 52.5k miles. Is this correct, or did he get it wrong.

I don't have the originial owners manual for my 75 308GT4, but what do the owner's manual say for these cars.
This isn't rocket science or some metaphysical problem. There ought to be a way to determine some statistical mean failure rate. How many ferrari mechanics are there in the US, probably less than a couple hundred. There's a finite, and ultimately relatively small number of old ferraris. With all the interest and expense, I'm surprised something like the ferrari club hasn't tried to address this issue, other than basically saying "for peace of mind, change every 5 yrs at the max."

sorry to add to this, but perhaps the fact that the issue keeps coming up is an indication that the answers have not been completely satisfactory.

btw: this is more than academic for me. My five years is coming up, and the car only has 10k miles since last replacement. From the little I can see of the belts, they look very good. Obviously can't see the tensioners, but I have to say I'm not completley convinced on the need to spend 2-3k just because of the "piece of mind" mentality. Guess it's a gamble; 2-3 now or wait a couple years, versus what I understand to be the relatively small possibility of a catestropic failure costing 10k, on an 18k car.
As a guy close to his money, and with other financial priorities, it's not slam dunk to do it now. But it's on my mind, as I'm sure it is on other's as well, which is another reason why the issue keeps coming up.

 

But the job will be done by a factory-trained technician, which is a plus.

 

There has been a new law about Timing belt change
"The Rifledrivers Law" This law has been passed and it's in effect as of last year. Obey or pay the crime

 

Look, dont change the belts, everyone is just BSing you. They are good for the life of the car and so is the fuel filler neck hose. Drive it like ya stole it.

 

Jason, do you remember the scene from Dirty Harry where the guy is laying on the sidewalk and Clint has the 44 Magnum pointed at him? And he tells him, "...Do you fell lucky?"
Guess which one of the two is you?

 

Why bother? Just another guy that bought a car he can't afford and is trying to justify not servicing it.

I am OK with it. In the end he will either pay someone like me a lot more money to fix it or he will have to sell for pennies on the dollar because he really can't afford to fix it.

Just another future case of Ferrari Darwinism.

As long as he doesn't preach it to everyone else he is pretty harmless to everyone but himself.

 

I shall answer the actual question.

Ferrari has produced a sports car that has the potential to be driven as it was intended. when you drive a performance car such as these the way they were designed to be driven, hard, with lots of red line accelerations etc, then you will be wise to service them accordingly.

Thus the manufacturer states that you have to perform a timing belt service at an interval which will allow you to drive these cars to their designed limits and not worry about a failure. As for the 5 year thing, the material will become brittle and the chance of failure is greater as time goes on. therefore, it is wise to change ALL timing belts after 5 years. The difference is that with other production cars you will usually pass the regularly scheduled maintenance interval within the 5 years.

if you do not drive the car hard you can extend the life at a risk. I do not recommend this as with this car, the expense of a failure far out weighs the reword.

Dan

 

Sorry for the delay.




www.ineverhavetochangemytimingbelts.com
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We can't have this many ......uh......ahem, "people" bringing this topic up this often can we?


You guys are just doing it so you can see these pictures right?

 

In deferrence to Dan's superhuman patience/politeness, let's clarify that for the V8 cars with timing belts Ferrari revised the interval to every 3 years.

 

ALL belt drive motors. 8 and 12.

 

Yes, but don't believe them - unless u have a 360, then maybe...

To ExcelsiorZ (I hope that does not imply u have a Nissan : o P ): You get a Ferrari, you change the belts in 5. Period. If not, rifledriver's kids get another year at Stanford on you!

 

I also heard that it is ok to leave the car running while you fill up with gas. This prevents pemature wear on the starter and electrical system.

 

Good idea, except I'm always chatting on the cell phone when I'm at the pump and the engine noise makes it hard to hear.

Nope, if this is Tristram he's had a couple of Ferraris, at least.

 

Then there was the guy 2 or 3 years ago who couldn't figure out how to change oil in a dry sump so he was sucking the oil out of his oil tank on his 360 while the motor was running.

That was a close one. I almost died laughing.

 

This is just another great opportunity for one of us F-chatters to think about a device that can accurately measure and quantify the go forward reliability of an existing belt (while still on the car). Ideally it would have a meter attached to the measurement device that would accurately predict the life of the belt under normal driving circumstances. Birdman, where are you? ;-)

 

I have one!! It's perfect and never screws up! It's a calendar!! After a period of three years goes by, I change the belts! (OK, I lie. I'm probably gonna go 4-5. But no more than 5).



Birdman

 

Then there was this friend of mine who had a red 450 SL back in the late 80's. He was doing a oil change and service. He drained his oil then had to run to the phone. After the lengthy phone call he went back to his car. He got in and started it to let it idle while he checked for leaks. He then got another phone call. After that call he went back outside to his car and it was no longer running, but smoke was coming from under the hood. When he opened it up the motor was hot enough to fry a tortilla.

After a short cool down period he looked around and finally checked his dipstick and to his surprise there was no oil.

See, after he drained the oil and put the plug back in, he got the first phone call.

Failure to put oil back in: "Priceless".

 

Belt stretch x age / tooth wear. No that doesnt work.

Age x tooth wear / stretch. No that doesn't work.

Tooth wear x stretch / age. Oh crap that doesn't work either.


Oh!!!!!! Technical service bulletins 1003 and 1215....DOH!