tr belts 16yrs old!

And the guy is the Tecnical chaiman for the Ferrari club of America. Well done that man for telling it like it is

 

I just changed mine. They were eleven years old .

 

My understanding is every five years or five thousand miles... belts and hoses had to be changed at a cost of around seven thousand dollars...

you guys are really pushing it... cause it can cause real bad damage.. to the engine. if not changed on regular service schedule..

john

 

So, let me get this straight....

If you buy a low mileage garage queen and plan to drive it 25,000 miles in the next 2 years, you should budget $42,000 for 6 belt changes? (1 upon purchase, then one every 5,000 miles)

 

No, provided the car hasn't had it;s belts changed it should be 1 major upon purchase followed by 1 major every 30k miles or 3-5 years (Ferrari advised a change from 5 to 3 year recomended intervals)

It's great to hear tales of cars that havent had maintanence and not gone foooom........personaly I'd be happier sticking to regular service work as you have no idea as to the condition of belts and bearings unless you've done the work at least once and you know how its been driven

 

What are you nuts? You could have had another 5 years on them belts....

 

On my 7th yr right now on my tr belts. Use the car every 2 weeks...in the winter i fire her up once a month and let it run for 2 full fan cycles. Will be redoing my belts this yr. The 3-5 rule is a cash grab, unless the car has sat for 3 yrs untouched.

 

Totally agree with you. Ferrari say the belts degrade with time even if the car is not used, so are we to assume that the belts when purchased from the Ferrari spare parts inventory only start to age once they have been paid for. I guess because of this they have them made them as they are ordered???????
Ive said it before,,,,,, If Porsche can make a belt for a V8 that lasts 60k miles or ten years, so can anyone else.
Steve

 

I like your arguments on the TR belt life span especially the one that the belts only start to age after you buy them. I wonder what the manufacture of the belts recommend? I always thought every 5 years was pretty lame, but I bought into the Ferrari BS. My Ferrari manual says 15,000 miles I couldn't find anything about 5 years? For me (2K miles/year driving * 7 yrs) so my belts should last 7 years!
Good luck,
Jim

 

true but I didn't have another 5 years on some of those water hoses that were swollen, or the fuse panel , or the clutch.

on a side note I went 4.5 years on my 348 and the belt had 3 splits in it when we changed it.

 

I've done 3 majors on Testarossas that I've owned, and I would like to toss in something to consider about this infamous "Belt Life" issue. You MUST also consider things like harmonics and vibrations, the overall length of the belt, how many bends it has to make in the application, as well exposure to oil, heat, water, coolant, whatever. In my opinion, V8s place more strain on timing belts than V12s do. The reason being the "back-n-forth" stresses or oscillations from the cam lobes and valve springs. A V8 has more severe stresses than does a V12. Also I've seen some pretty bad routing of belts around numerous pullies and bearings, and yet some engines have only a few bends or turns for the belt to cope with. A Testarossa is pretty easy on cam belts. Also the longer the length of the belt the more it will stretch, but also the less each tooth or cog is exposed to a mating part. I just want to point out that there are many factors that contribute to belt wear and failure. For peace of mind I subscribe to the 30k mile or 5 year rule, this is NOT unreasonable considering the cost of a failure on a Ferrari. Maybe it is a bit overkill, but at least I can sleep soundly at night, and not be afraid to take a long trip on a whim, rather than feel like I'm treading on thin ice just tempting fate. Okay....I'm putting my flack jacket on now...so fire away boys....

 

SO what have the belts looked like then ?

I saw the one i did on my car back in 99 when i bought it.....it wasnt bad it was from 91...but the tensioners were abit week when i compared them to the new ones. How about you?

 

just changed the wife's toyota landcruiser belt as the timing belt light came on at 90000 miles on a 6 year old car first belt its had so toyota make better belts than ferrari as they recommend 90 k or 5 years and it took 1 hour 20 mins but the tensioner was goosed leaking fluid

 

The problem is that the belts are probably made at the same factory.......

 

Everybody's so fixated on the belts they forget the root cause of most belt failures....the tensioner bearings, even Steve's wifes Toyota had leaky bearings after 6 years.

 

Leaky bearings....I think he may have meant grease. They are sealed bearings. I have posted before about tensioner bearings, so I dont really want to get back into discussing them now.

 

I believe all the Ferrari Belts are made by Dayco in Dayton Ohio...

 

Good day,

I have to add to this... I recently acquired a BB that sat for 7 years. Just prior to this hibernation the Ferrari dealer performed the timing belt service. Interestingly, upon performing the timing belt service (new belts, tensioners, hoses, etc), I noticed that the old belts looked as new (as I was expecting), but noticed that the dealer did not change the tensioners... This tensioner's age was obvious, as the tensioner's surface had dirt,grime, etc embedded within in it and the actual bearings literally fell apart as I was removing them... It is hard to believe that the new tensioners could be like this with only a few hundred Kms on them. So, say what you will about the belts, etc, but ensure that the tensioners are replaced at the same time...

Cheers,

Sam

 

Those belts are driving 2 more cylinders on a 12 than an 8 which is 4 more valve springs per bank so the stress would be higher on a 12 than an 8 which is contrary to your arguement.

 

All the belts are made by Dayco, however their made by Dayco Europe in Italy

 

was just looking at your profile. bet you wish you still had all those mopars now.
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To quote Newman: "Those belts are driving 2 more cylinders on a 12 than an 8 which is 4 more valve springs per bank so the stress would be higher on a 12 than an 8 which is contrary to your arguement."


Actually it's 8 more valves per bank, not 4 (at least for a Testarossa) I can't recall exactly where I heard about belt stresses and stuff, some engineer a couple of years ago. A V8 is more prone to oscillations because there is more degree of rotation between ramp ups and ramp downs on the camshaft. A V12 mostly has ramp ups and downs at the same time and these tend to cancel each other out, and produce very little "back-n-forth" type of stresses. If you rotated by hand, an overhead cam V8 camshaft, it would turn hard...then easy...then hard...etc - with the 4 main event forces spread out over 360 degrees of rotation. An overhead cam V12 camshaft would have the same easy/hard moments but the event forces are closer together and nearly overlap, reducing the "wobble" effect compared to a V8.

I somebody can jump in here and tell us the whole scoop....

 

I understood what you said. Makes sense.

 

also a 12 cylinder has more torque and is faster than a 8 cylinder so you tend to rev the 8 cylinder car higher to try to get it to go so that is putting more strain on the belts