Nope! - BMW quote a time/mileage limit for any of their cars that have a timing belt! According to the net it is quoted as being 60,000 miles or 4 years (Whichever comes first), however, when I had My BMW E30 325i Sport, My BMW Dealer advised that the belt needed changing every 36,000 miles or 3 years (whichever came first), so it's not only a Ferrari thing! (From the BMW E36 onwards, all BMW's have used chains that should last the lifetime of the cars. However, some models have had issues with their chains!). As I see it, the cost of changing the belts is far less than the cost of an engine rebuild, so the gamble simply isn't worth it!
OMG! 3 years! Better change them. Anyway, my car just turned 17500 miles. I have no receipts. Had it checked by a guy who knows Ferraris. Looks like a service was done. Plugs, filters, blah blah. Point being made, i'm changing them over the winter. Doesn't seem too difficult and y'all know the rest.
I have only 2 valves on my GT4 and I think the original poster is pushing it. what helps destroy the belts is climate, time and inactivity combined. I am using the Hill bearings and change them every time, coming up on 2 years.
I recently bought a 1986 328GTB in Italy. Last cam belt change (and bearing tensioners) was done in 2005. Between the cam belt change and my purchase, the car did about 500kms in 8 years time. I drove the car home from southern Italy (2000km) without any problem. It will get it's major this winter though!
If you guys think the Ferrari belt path is convoluted, just try the single timing belt on a 928. I still have a 928 belt hanging in my garage as a badge of honor.
I much prefer the look of the dual belts on the 308/328 than the single belt on the 348 as well, that just looks entirely too long to me!
"I much prefer the look of the dual belts on the 308/328 than the single belt on the 348 as well, that just looks entirely too long to me!" I have never seen the 348 layout; sounds like I don't want to!
VW the same - anecdotally, they had lots of cam belt tensioner failure issues with some of their engines & it was pretty unclear what the change interval was as well - seemed to vary between engines. Some of them were spec'd to 110K miles I seem to recall. Then they suddenly issued a TSB on ALL belts - 4 years or 60K miles and the design of some of the tensioners was changed as well.
"This is a Mondial T - but same idea" Wow...hard to believe that works at all! What's the recommended interval for change, 45 minutes? No wonder Ferrari went back to chains!
Every 5 years. Car site for about 5 months a year in a dry/heated garage (at least 50 degrees F/I think that works out to about 10 degrees C). As someone else said, my understanding is that inactivity, low temperatures or high temperatures created from track use are likely to shorten belt life. Again, I have no proof, just my understanding.
I believe Vauxhall/GM in the UK also found themselves having to drop from 100,000miles/the lifetime of the car down to something like 40,000miles or 4years (Whichever comes first), for the same reason. On My BMW, the belt was changed every three years religiously (I'd had a brand new engine fitted to it by BMW when I bought it and there was no way I was going to gamble the engine on 20 Quids worth of belt possibly failing!). There is currently a possibility of purchasing either a 328 or a 348 in the near future, and should it happen, one things for certain - I won't be taking any gambles with the belts!
15 years 10Kmiles ago when PO did major, just bought the car have put over 500 miles in last month read the owners manual it states "50K miles" for belt change no years??? have a major scheduled in December with Euginio
"Ferrari backed away from that recommendation in writing many many years ago." I know this has been discussed before and there are differing opinions about the Ferrari Bulletin on the subject. But I personally do not believe it applies to 3x8s. It was issued in the '90s, at the time of the 348, and applied to "v8 engines." Normally, when an automotive bulletin is issued by a manufacturer it covers engines that are in production at the date of the bulletin OR, it specifically states if it covers earlier, out of production engines. The Ferrari bulletin does not so state. Since the 348 has an even more convoluted belt path than the 3x8 (which I just learned here in the last few days), it seems even more clear to me that the bulletin is in ref to the 348 and not the 3x8. But that's just MY opinion.
Ferrari put different things in different owners manuals. I my UK owners manual it quite clearly states that the belt change interval is every 21,750-28,000 miles (35-45K km) - OR 24 MONTHS MAXIMUM Suspect it won't say that in the manual you've got.... Doesn't say anything about the tensioners though anywhere & you'd have thought that by the time they got to the 328 they'd have known enough about them to specify a service interval on them.....
"I my UK owners manual it quite clearly states that the belt change interval is every 21,750-28,000 miles (35-45K km) - OR 24 MONTHS MAXIMUM Suspect it won't say that in the manual you've got...." You're right. The US manual for my '89 328 says the belt is to be replaced every 52,500 miles/84,000km. I ASSUME (yes, I know about assumptions) that if that is a longer interval than what was stated on earlier cars, it was due to the fact that Ferrari figured out that the shorter intervals were not necessary. If, OTOH, your car is also an '89 328, that would be very confusing (and, to me, unexplainable) to have such radically different recommendations for the same car.
It is an '89 328 (#79393) & AFAIK there were no changes of anything substantial on the 328 powertrain anyway.
No worse than a Subaru Sti and that one's good for 105,000 miles with a 7000rpm limit. Image Unavailable, Please Login
! You are right; it's certainly no worse than that! In it's favor, it loos like that belt is wider than the Ferrari belt but that could just be the pic angle.
I actually broke a cam belt on a little 1990 Ford Ranger once. The valves had room so no problem there, but I have done it before.
