How To Tell If Timing Belt Has Been Replaced

Routine belt changes are the most expensive routine maintenance required on many cars. Here’s how to make sure you don’t have to pay when you don’t need it. No one likes doing this costly maintenance work. Once we bite the bullet and it’s done, we have a decade or at most 100K miles before we have to worry about it again. Receipts from completed work become valuable to you if you should sell or exchange the vehicle. But what if you’re buying a used car that looks perfect and is now due for service? How can you tell if the timing belt has been replaced? Read: how to tell if a timing belt has been replaced A CarTalk Comunity member recently paid for a timing belt change, only to find out later that the car had been serviced. to 20K miles earlier. Oi. That got us thinking about how this could be avoided. And as it turns out, there’s an easy way to know – usually. Read more: how to delete a team on the teamnap appEvery vehicle owner should keep track of any services performed on their vehicle and store that information (with original receipts) securely. However, in a country where parents can’t even keep an eye on the kids in the backseat, the reality is that those receipts are often lost or thrown away before the car leaves the store. . A job done properly can cost hundreds of dollars and they feel a responsibility to ensure that owners, and future owners, know when service is completed and the vehicle is gone. how many kilometers on the odometer at that time. So they have a sticker with that information. Just like in our image above from Toyota Highlander. A Lexus dealer put this on when the vehicle was serviced. Hopefully the sticker lasts under the hood for the next decade. Our go-to source for fixing things, Mark McMullen of G&M Services in Millis, Mass. Tells BestRide, “All kits and belts come with a sticker, which I always fill out and attach. I cannot speak for anyone else. They can also fall off if the area is not clean. “We wondered if there was a trick or clue that could reveal the belt was made. Mark told us, “Sometimes one of the flaps can be removed and the motor can be turned by hand to see the brand of the belt, you can also see if it looks old or new. That can be done in about half an hour. Otherwise, it is difficult to know for sure. This method also does not reveal when or how many kilometers the belt has been changed or whether replacing the water pump, a job often done with the belt, has been completed. Read more: Mispronunciations about beer | Top Q&ARelated: When should I change my timing belt?Why is changing the timing belt so important? The reason is simple; Not changing it can lead to a destroyed engine in many modern cars. There are four main ways that automakers design engines. Those with a time chain instead of a belt need not worry. Vehicles like the Toyota Prius and Mazda CX-5 have chains, and they are designed to prolong the life of the vehicle. No belts to change. These are the minority motives of today. Then there are two different types of valve and head designs. One design has valves that will be closed by the pistons if the belt breaks. These are called “jamming engines”. The valves impede the pistons as the engine rotates if the belt breaks. These catastrophic non-contact motors are called “non-jamming” motors. This is a listing that shows what type of car you have.If you’re looking for a used car (and why not start your search at topqa.info?), always ask to see the vehicle’s full service history. If you are buying it from a dealer, you may be in luck and they may already be self employed and have a record. There is no receipt for the changed timing belt, always look closely at the sticker that proves it has been changed. If not, adjust your valuation for that vehicle to account for the work you’ll need to do. Read more: how to make a paper resume cover