F cars with cam belts

Terry, you are missing the point.

 

From cam belts to coolant..

 

Let's move all belt threads to P&R...

 

Lets just instead give John some data too collect.
Thats what I did.
Mitchel you have done quite a few send John the results.

 

John- No, you used a bad example to try and make your point.

 

The point was simple. Manufactures change recommended services to suit their needs, not the owners.

How about serpentine belts? Recommended change intervals is typically 3 years by many manufactures and, famously, by Gates. Anyone changing them every 3 years on their cars, including daily drivers? Hard to ague that Ferraris are harder on serpentine belts. I must admit that I generally don't change them at all. I had two break. One,16 years old. Broke because the AC compressor seized. The other, 14 years old. Broke because an alternator seized. And while I haven't seen hundreds of T belt failures, all those that I have were related to either some other mechanical failure or oil contamination, not just because the belt broke.

Anyway, back the T belts. I don't have much data but so far the little I do have is clustered between 5 and 7 years with a couple of 4s. I guy posted here that he does every 2. Really? Ok, if he says so I'll include it, with an asterisk. I will mention that when I was looking at cars one I had a deposit on had 3, 4, and was, at the time, 6 years in the its last major. Another, a green 97, never had a major. That was in 2012, so 15 years. I seem to recall that Ernie posted when doing a major on his 348 that he had gone 10 years.

 

Not a flame but something to consider is fastener fatigue from repetitive torquing and pulling threads in castings. Unless you're replacing the tensioner bearing studs in the heads and main tensioner bearing bolts you'll probably have a failure related to changing the belts too often! Now wouldn't that suck.

 

I only put a few hundred miles on my cars a year. My first belt replacement on my 308 was at 14 years, and according to the service records the second belt replacement on the car since new. Currently I am at about 6 to 7 years and a few hundred miles.

 

Well, my 97 355 had one major service in its life in 2004. I bought it in 2012 and drove it over 3.5 summers and over 7k miles. Several 500+ mile road trips, some 1/8th mike drag racing, and 1000 times to redline. It was still running like a beast with no problems when I sold it in 2016 with 12 years on the belts. It was shipped to the U.K. And the new owner is doing a major. I'll see if he'll give me info on what he finds/found.

I didn't care, if it blew up I would not have rebuilt it myself let alone pay a dealership 30 grand to rebuild it. My car had 30-37k miles on it while I owned it. I could buy a 20k mile engine for under $10k do a service on it and drop it right in and go.

 

Along the same lines, I wonder how many mistakes are introduced by excessively frequent servicing. How many bits lost, broken, forgotten, over or under torqued, etc. It's not like pulling a dipstick to check the oil. Even then, many experienced air-cooled Porsche owners screw that up and lose the dipstick in the oil tank.

 

Ok, so far here are the results:
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What is considered excessive frequent servicing?

 

Why not just label the chart self reporting versus insulting one person by not believing him?


(Although why I'd expect the tone of the chart to be different than the post tone while addressing Ferrari mechanics I don't know).

 

Hope mine isn't the 20 years!!

I said it came with 20yrs of FSH when I got it, but that there was little sign of tensioners, nuts or studs having been touched!

I did belt changes pretty much at 2 yr intervals, but not tensioners at that rate. That was from about 2005 to 2010.... one year might have coincided with me replacing a water pump gasket and getting coolant over them and being nervous.

Since about 2010 the car has been stripped whilst other life priorities took over. Didn't see the need to change belts whilst the heads were off.

Will probably fit new belts if I reuse the QV engine.

Let's hope this isn't how Ferrari worked out its approach;-)


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I don't consider a foot note on the chart an insult and I would hope the person who reported it would realize that.

My misunderstanding of your post. I will revise the graph. So you are saying 05, 07, 09, three belt changes.

 

Corrected graph.
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John, no worries, it's now there or there abouts. Aside from listening to people on here and FOC, I also had a couple of poor experiences with some service 'specialists' early on. That probably upped the psychological pressure . I think the first definition I had of an interference engine was that: "if the belt went, then it would f@@k'n interfere with your wallet". My approach and then emphasis on DIYing was in part shaped by that!!


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Make sure you separate V8's from V-12's. The TSB is 3 for 8's 5 for 12's

 

And, why would there be a difference?

 

V-12's are special. Well it is more complicated than that but around 575maranello 2008 new belt design goes 5 years. New belt on pre-575 still 3 yrs but everyone (pros) doing 5 years without issue. Issue is probably where ferarri did the testing 575 and new belt and since not back tested left old recommendations in place. Pick your poison...on 12's

 

AFAIK these are all V8s. 308, 348, Mondial T, 355.

 

They are all V8s. In early 2002 Ferrari introduced Kevlar reinforced belts for the 575M that also replaced the belts for the 456s and 550s and carried over to the 612s in 2003. Belt change interval for the V12s produced after that change to Kevlar belts went from 3 years to 5 years, like FBB said.

We have one 550 owner whose Ferrari suffered a belt failure at 29,000+ miles when the old belt change recommendation was only mileage (30,000 miles). She was already scheduled for a belt change when one belt broke. Bent 24 valves, but luckily did not do much other damage except to valve guides. Skinny valve stems have some advantages.

Belt change intervals are different for the V12s because of lower redlines, simpler cam drives and tensioners, etc.

Here is bulletin 1003/A, revised from the original 1003 issued in 2002.
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Not according to the last paragraph.

 

No extended life testing was done on the earlier V12s, so Ferrari did not include them in the bulletin, as noted by me above. "belt change interval for the V12s produced after that date...".

Jim- Why are you being such a stick in the mud? Thought we were friends. Did I cram a stick in your spokes somewhere along the line?

 

Terry, you made a declarative statement that was in conflict with the bulletin. All I did was point that out. Just trying to keep the facts straight, what little there are, and separate from opinions.

How different are the belt runs on a 575 vs a 550? If not different, and given 550 has slightly lower redline it seems odd that the newer belt would not have changed the interval on the 550.

Given the lack of hard data available and the above quote, this change could have just been a reflection of Ferrari at the time trying to lower expenses on newer cars that have multi-year maintenance packages while keeping up profits for parts orders for older cars. Purely an opinion on my part.