Although many cars now use maintenance-free timing belts (in fact, they are just steel timing belts). But there are still quite a few cars that still use traditional rubber timing belts. This kind of thing, like the generator belt and the compressor belt, needs to be replaced regularly. If it is not replaced, it will even cause the entire engine to be scrapped. But the question is, how often should the timing belt be changed?
Some people will tell you that you change it every 80,000 kilometers. But in fact, it is not that simple, and the replacement cycle is different at different temperatures.
Rubber is actually not resistant to low temperature and high temperature. If the temperature is too high, the aging of the rubber will be aggravated, and if the temperature is too low, the rubber will be hardened and brittle. Both of these conditions can cause the timing belt to age prematurely.
Generally speaking, if your use environment is in high temperature for a long time and there is a lot of wind and sand, we would recommend that you do not change it until 80,000 kilometers, and it should be replaced sooner, 70,000 or 65,000 kilometers. And if you live in a low temperature environment for a long time, especially in winter, the aging speed of rubber will be greatly accelerated under extreme low temperature.
How can I tell if it should be replaced?
There is a soil method commonly used by maintenance workers that can be used as a reference, but this method can only be used for reference and does not have very precise guiding significance. Find the timing belt and touch its surface with your hand to see if it feels like rough paper. If there is, it is preliminarily proved that the belt is a little old, but it is uncertain whether to replace it or not.
Use a light source (a mobile phone flashlight or something with a certain brightness) to illuminate the belt to see if the color has become seriously white. If it's just a little whitish, it's fine to wipe it off with your hands, it's just dirt. If the unwiped edges are whitish, it may be hanging a bit. If the entire belt is white, and you can even see some small cracks, it goes without saying, drive and replace it!
The second is to press it by hand. There is a misunderstanding here. It is not what some media say "if the belt is tight, it will be fine and the belt will be loose." Because the belt must be very tight under normal circumstances, if it is loose, the belt itself has a problem, and your car may have been lying down. The purpose of pressing it is to feel its toughness.
This is difficult to describe in words. If you think it has good toughness and does not have the above problems, you can ignore it for the time being. But if you already feel that the belt has no toughness, and it feels like a stick, even if there is no crack, it will not turn white. Most of the belt has aged and hardened.
All in all, to be on the safe side, I recommend that you replace the timing belt at about 60,000 kilometers, after all, the cost of changing it once is not high.
