328 Timing Belt change?

Ferrari and its US dealers make very clear that the 360 timing belts need to be changed every 3 years (I risk every 5 on account of low annual mileage). I have not heard about whether it is necessary to do the same for my '86 328 GTS. The owner's manual does not include a maintenance schedule. Please advise. Thanks.

 

Ferrari's recommendation changed to 3 years in the recent past. I go 5 years with mine.

 

I've done 3 majors on my car in 12 years. I subscribe to the 5 year plan.

 

I forgot all the about it and looked at my receipts the other day. The belts on my 328 is ... 6 years old. They are coming out in a few weeks.

 

Are you sure you're looking at an owners manual ? There's a whole section covering maintenance in great detail.......including 24 month belt change to re-open an argument that has been had far too often

 

Drapp54, I suggest that you do a search in the 308/328 section on belt changes. There are many, many threads talking about this very issue, and the factors involved in various decisions when to change the belts. I also suggest that you NOT post this question in that section, unless you are prepared to have your head chopped off and placed on a spike on the castle wall. This topic is the "Niagra Falls" of the 308/328 section, if you understand my reference.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr6VBg1SiYI]Abbott & Costello - The Niagara Falls Sketch ("Slowly I Turned") - YouTube[/ame]

 

The owners manual of my '89 states 84,000 Km's for belt change with no time period.

I would go along with the 5 year plan for belt change.

 

I have my doubts - certainly the 86 & late 88 (date not model year) manuals in front of me have 2 year intervals and do not even mention 84 000 km as an interval

 

Download the owners manual for the '89 328 that is available. Read it and then you can apologize to me. It is the same as the original hard-copy one I have.

 

Thank you for pointing out that the 89 manual displays such a huge change

I doubted the accuracy on the basis that up to 88 it was completely different and am happy to have my knowledge increased

Post 5 remains valid however !

 

My 89 manual states 2 years

 

I did mine in 2006 and then waited 6 years to do them again in 2012.

Glad I didn't wait any longer. The belts themselves were like new, however the tensioner bearings were on the verge of catastrophic failure. One bearing was very nearly seized, and the other was being held in place by 2 threads of the bolt, and that belt had almost no tension on it. Incredibly lucky that it didn't jump any teeth.

The old bearings were the Ferrari replacement parts. I replaced them with Hill Engineering bearings this time. The Ferrari-boxed bearings didn't even last 4,000 miles of driving!

I'm still going to wait another 6 years before doing this service again.

 

Jeff, if you torqued the tensioner bolt correctly, it should not have come loose. If that is a concern, it's not a big deal in between belt changes to pull the belt covers and re-torque the tensioner bearing bolts. Those Hill Engineering bearings are extremely good, from what I've seen, and should hold up well compared to the stock SKF bearings, IMHO.

 

My guess is that the bolt was not correctly torqued. I did not do it myself, it was done by an independent shop in Illinois. The Hill bearings are almost too pretty to hide away.