Timing Belt Replacement

Must have done a lot more than head damage.

Reply to
hachiroku
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That wasn't a dealer! That was an independant Subaru 'specialist' who everyone tells me is the best.

Must have had a boat payment due. Or, coome to think of it, it *was* just after Christmas...

Reply to
hachiroku

The labor rate does not change when adding additional work unless the dealership uses variable labor rates depending on the difficulty of the operation, where they charge a lower rate for simple work like changing oil, a slightly higher rate for moderately difficult work like changing a timing belt, and the highest rate for complex work like diagnosing a drivability or intermittent electrical problem.

In the case of a Camry water pump and timing belt replacement, replacing the water pump is the deepest operation, so they would have charged the customer for the labor to replace the water pump, plus an extra half hour or so to replace the timing belt.

Reply to
Ray O

Not according to a lot of people who post in this newsgroup. They report that the dealer quoted them full price for both procedures, even when done together.

Reply to
Mark A

Dunno.. I'd always want to change the WP and tensioner if I'm in there doing the belt. Delaying the pump in particular is just not worth the risk of damage to the engine, and also you'd have to go back in there. I always recommend doing it all and being done with it. Oil seals too.. But.. I do it myself... Changing a timing belt is easy. But... You have to be very exact in setting it back up. You can't even be one tooth off. This is not hard to do, but it's not unusual to have to redo it

2-3 times before finally locking it all down. I'll align the marks before removing the belt making sure they are perfectly aligned. When I put the new belt on, I make triple sure the marks are *exactly* like they were with the old belt. Never have had any problem.. I'd crank the engine with the new belt, and it would sound the same as with the old one.. You will know if it's even one tooth off. It won't run and time right. It'll feel and sound different right off the bat. If that ever happened to me, I'd tear it back apart and do it over until it was right. But.. I make sure it is right the first time.. I *hate* doing things over. The danger in postponing a WP is they often totally flake out in only a few minutes time. You often get no or little warning before they start squealing, and pouring out water. I don't need that @#$% in my life.. So I alway swap in a new pump if I'm in timing belt territory. And.. I always use at least a new pump if not OEM. Don't get the rebuilts. They suck. But the new ones are ok. Or at least I haven't had any problems with new ones so far. Costs a bit more, but it's worth it. If there is a kiss of death to a JA engine, it's overheating. I'll do anything I can to reduce the likelihood of it happening. Once you overheat one real bad, they ain't never the same again.. :(
Reply to
nm5k

The auto mfg's should mount the WP reversed, not attached to the engine block and driven by assy belt. That would make it more accessible and cheaper to change.

Reply to
dbu

Some older cars (and tractors) were essentially done that way. It is exactly opposite of the trend towards more and more integration - adds weight, parts, and up front labor costs. Good or bad, initial cost, weight and compactness trump consumer convenience and life-of-vehicle costs to the nth degree.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

I understand. If real reliability and true low cost ever really becomes important, it could be feasible. Can you imagine a car that you did not have to dump hundreds of dollars and inconvenience every 100k miles on as well as worry about high risk of catastrophic failure like you do with timing belt driven water pumps on interference engines? (I realize that most consumers are ignorant to the point of not even knowing the risks and potential failure modes.)

Again - understood. The torque capability would have to be hugely overkilled to guarantee proper pump operation for a pump whose tightness was at the high end of the bell curve under all operating conditions. And there would be little safety factor for anomalous situations that tended to restrict the pump's rotation and/or flow characteristics.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

Why not build the water pump so that it would last the life of the engine. Don't tell me it can't be done, if they can build an engine that will run for 300,000 miles then they can build a water pump that will run that long also.

I don't think you could build a water pump that was driven using magnetic coupling for a reasonable amount of money. A water pump running at speed will require around 2 horse power.

The idea of using a vital system, that if it fails will ruin the engine, to power a device that is designed to fail and fail in such a way as to destroy that vital system is ridiculous. It's the manufacturer telling you to bend over and grab your ankles. The really bad part is that he doesn't even kiss you when he gets done.

Jack

Reply to
Retired VIP

Mitsushitty 2.6

Too bad the rest of the engine was such a disaster.

Reply to
aarcuda69062

why not make the *entire* engine (and it's components) that way?

Seems to me that there's plenty of parts that could easily be replaced by more permanent parts (like hoses, belts etc).

We can put someone on the moon but we can't make a radiator hose that doesn't wear out?

Of course, the entire automotive repair industry would tank and dealers rely heavily on their service and parts department for revenue.

Reply to
01dyna

They do. Problem is; vehicle owners don't follow the proper maintenance intervals. Hell, they won't even use the OE recommended fluids that enable longer engine life. Don't believe me, swing over to one of the GM groups, in a short time some dufus will author a post about switching to a non approved coolant.

That's why you're supposed to maintain it.

What is likely to fail sooner, the big fat timing belt or the skinny vee belt?

Is that manufacturer holding a gun to your head?

Reply to
aarcuda69062

So, you're saying that you'd prefer a $100,000 hose that never needs replacing to a $10.00 hose that needs replacing once every 100,000 miles.

Reply to
aarcuda69062

I don't doubt that there are dealers who double dip. I got the impression, correctly, or incorrectly, that you were implying that most dealers double dip, and I responded that none of the dealers I visited did that. I specifically qualified my statement by mentioning that my experience was with the dealers I visited, not all or even most dealers. From my experience with the 50 or so dealers **I** visited and the 100 + that **I** worked with directly, there are more dealers that have honest service department than dishonest ones. My direct experience sample size was only about 8% of the Toyota dealer population at that time, and while it is not a

100% sample, it is probably larger than most of the other posters here have.

Toyota pays a lot of money for various customer surveys and studies, and one of the surveys pointed out that a customer who has a good experience with a dealer service department will generally tell 2 or 3 people about that good experience, but a customer who has a bad experience will tell 25 others about the bad experience, so the news sounds disproportionately bad. The point we made with service departments was to make sure that they made a good effort to resolve as many customer complaints as they could to avoid the spread of bad word-of-mouth experiences. With the advent of the proliferation of personal access to the internet and newsgroups, the effect of a bad experience has probably been magnified thousands of times over. For example, I don't recall over 100 posters saying that their Toyota dealer double-charged them.

Reply to
Ray O

There are a couple of catches to building something that lasts the lifetime of an engine. The first being defining "lifetime." It used to be common for cars to only last 100,000 miles without major repair expenses, and during that time, it was not uncommon to replace an alternator and water pump, spark plugs, points, condenser, rotor, distributor cap, and ignition wires every 12,000 to 24,000 miles. Most modern cars will easily go 100,000 miles without having to replace a water pump and alternator, and the spark plugs would have been replaced only once in that interval. Toyota is starting to go back to timing chains, so the periodic replacement of timing belts will start to go away.

The other catch to defining lifetime is that the lifetime of an engine is now well over 250,000 miles, so the components like a water pump, alternator, seals, etc. have to last more than twice as long as they used to. Rubber used in seals has a finite life, so that is the weak link.

Reply to
Ray O

Your previous response was limited to a very specific situation, which was not exactly what we were discussing.

Here is your exact quote from a previous post:

"As for the 50 or so Toyota dealers I've [Ray O] visited, none charged extra labor for accessory drive belt replacement when changing the timing belt."

I am sure you are correct about that, but the subject was a timing belt change and a water pump change done at the same time (not a timing belt change and accessory drive belt change). Based on numerous comments in this newsgroup, the majority (if not all) dealers will not "quote" a labor price break if these are done together.

Reply to
Mark A

Yup, that post was in response to the paragraph that proceeded it.

I guess this is another one of those situations where we'll have to agree to disagree.

Reply to
Ray O

Well that, and the manufacturer's sales are, or at least they think they are, **extremely** sensitive to consumer purchase price (which affects their profit margin) which is driven to a large degree by the initial manufacturing cost. They are run by MBA's.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

In most cases I would agree with you, but if by "approved coolant" you mean DexCool?/Prestone Extended Life?, I wouldn't use that in my lawnmower - well that is, if my lawnmower were water cooled. I don't even use DexCool in my wife's Buick - that stuff is garbage.

Let's face it - the zero sulfates was a huge mistake. Zerex, Ford, and Chrysler got it right with G-05 (and I suspect Prestone's "All Makes All Models" is a reverse-engineered version of that to get people away from DexCool? and save face - I guaranteed they wouldn't make that awful mistake again).

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

Building a pump that never fails isn't so easy. It's a wear item with seals. They could build a pump where the seals could be changed more easily, but the labor cost would outweigh the savings.

There are several wear items in a car that if they fail the engine will be ruined. When a water pump fails it starts by leaking. If enough coolant is lost then the engine will begin to overheat. If the owner does nothing about either of these then the engine is damaged. What's needed on vehicles, and I'm not being facetious, is an audible and visual warning system that clearly tells the driver "Stop Now or Your Engine will Be Destroyed." Aluminum blocks cannot tolerate overheating like iron blocks could.

Reply to
SMS

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