Does it really need a new cam belt?

[colcol]

The reason Alfa Romeo and others run their engines on 'rubber bands' is that cam belts are accurate, and don't loose their accuracy over their service life, they have low operating inertia, ie not heavy bits of metal flying round, they are very quite, and don't have the timing chain rattle, every time you put a new cambelt on, the valve timing goes back to being spot on again, as you have an unstretched belt, with the newer Alfa Romeo's, ie 159 Benzina with their General Motors supplied engines, they use a timing chain, which has a longer life than a 'rubber band', but are a bit harsher and noisier, and chains do stretch over time, and become inaccurate and your valve timing goes out causing the car to become sluggish and eventually causing an alarm in the motor, because the timing is too far out of tolerance, only way to fix it is a new timing chain, which is about 3 times more expensive to replace than a 'rubber band', the choice is yours, Colin.

[wankski]

i have heard a lot about cam chain noise, but never noticed it... some of the smoothest engines known, i.e bimmer str8 6s and v8s are all cam chain.... pretty quiet engines...

even a fairly agricultural ka24de nissan engine, never noiticed it...

i'd rather a chain.... if i had one, i wouldn't be gearing up to change my belt over easter, i'd be driving it...

fwiw, the new fiat sourced 1750tbi engines have gone back to belts and are also cited to have a 3 yrs change interval...

[wankski]

in defense of chains, they don't stretch... any chain, including moto drive chains, wear at the rollers due to dirt ingestion and wear casuing elogation as against entire chain link length.

a cam drive system doesn't experience near enough force to plastically deform a steel chain in tension.

the reason why a lot of newer chain engines are having this problem is simple: oil intervals. Most manufacturers have moved to 20k kms / 1 yr change intervals and this is way too much. period.

if you ran a chain system and never let a quality oil (with a good detergent package) get too brown let alone black, the chain would live a very long time. (along with filter change every time!) simply put, no or few contaminants = no to low chain roller wear.

there are a million old school engines with inferior oil with long lasting chains, including alfas own venerable old 'nord' engines and the 8v twinspark. chains worked just fine for those engines and seldom were an issue.

no matter how advanced an engine oil, it cannot teleport out grit ingested or carbon pulled from the cylinders. there gets a point were it's saturated and is going to score any rolling metal parts which come into contact. It's much worse for chains, as they are small metal parts and actually don't work at all on a fluid layer to prevent metal to metal contact like bearing shells do. They do run metal on metal (rollers and pins) and so if the lubrication for the metals parts carries contamination, especially larger dirt particles, it quickly gums up with the oil and becomes a very effective grinding paste wearing down the rollers much quicker than you would think. It's not unusual for a 10sp bicycle chain of similar dimensions and materials to only last 5000 kms. why? they are exposed to dirt and are only seldom cleaned and lubricated by the user. The same or similar wipperman chain that for example runs a mercedes 6cyl engine is expected to last far longer than 100,000kms due to the fact it is not exposed to the environment and dirt. cam chains rely on being in a 'clean' environment.

the very idea of a 40k kms or 60k kms 159 having only had 2-3 full oil changes in it's life is simply moronic. manufacturers don't care as long as they last the warranty period and they can advertise low service intervals and cost to the purchaser.... no one cars about the 2nd or 3rd owner who is left to hold the hot potato...

that's my rant fwiw...

[colcol]

Hey Joe, you are spot on there with oil changes, the cheapest thing you will put in your motor is oil, i remember a few years ago, a manufacturer was claiming low service costs on their new model car they had just released, "only needs the oil changed every 20,000 or 1 year", can you imagine the oil drained from it?, 50% metal, even if you don't want the dealer to put expensive Selena oil in, go to a franchised service centre and get the oil changed every 6 months or 6,000klms, cheap clean oil has to be better than expensive worn out oil, Colin.

[trippytipo]

My 2005 156 JTS 2.0 last had its cam belt changed in July 2008 (at 48000km). According to the current advice (ie 50000km or 3 years), the belt is ovedue for a change. However, I can't help but wonder if this is a bit of a waste since the car has only done only 20000 km since then. Any opinions about whether I should get this job done immediately, or am I safe to delay it a bit. Also interested in opinions about best place to get the work done (eastern side of Melb).

I had a similar dilemma with my 156 V6 - timing belt changed 3 years ago but only done ~35,000 km since then. There is a lot of conflicting advice on the V6 timing belt changes - Alfa UK vs Alfa Australia.

I got Sebastian from Mauceri Motors to inspect the belt for me. I would suggest you do the same if in doubt.

All the best!

[Joe Garra]

Did he say it was ok? And if so, did he give a guarantee?

[wankski]

there isn't conflicting advice anywhere... i don't mean to sound like a d!ck but this is a common misconception.

this is what happened: With the introduction of the typo 932 cars, alfa said 5 yrs or 100k kms for all belts - v6 or 4s...

THEN

Alfa issued a dealer notice to ALL petrol 4 cylinders, be them twinspark or JTS, that it was revised to 3 yrs, 60k kms...

No official notice was provided for the 6s. THAT SAID, look at your manual. it states that the 6s are good for 5 yrs *..... that * at the bottom of the page says checked or replaced at 3 yrs in harsh climates.... then of course people differ on what 'harsh operating conditions' - what is that? is climate a factor? what climate? aussie or iceland? conjecture befalls us...

suffice to say most people have moved to 3 years to prevent the alternative, an ultimate paper-weight that looks like an engine.

No official ALFA/FIAT s.p.a recall on the arese 6 was ever made.

ps. you can not effectively eyeball a belt's condition unless it is removed u need to see small cracks at the base of the 'teeth', once removed may as well replace of course ! What you can do is remove the cambelt cover and inspect the belt general condition - and perhaps more so its position on the pullies and tension. Sure fire indication something has gone wrong - belt moved to the outside edge of the pulley and even rubbing on the plastic guard = tensioner is toast. This ought be done every oil change or really anytime u have the bonnet open if you can. only 3 bolts to remove upper guard. takes 5 min for a lot of piece of mind.

[Steve S]

Stripped teeth usually indicate contamination of the belt, not too much use.

The "inspect and replace if necessary" position; I believe is to check the operational environment, not the belt itself. As you say the belt can't be accurately checked. If you pull the cover and see oil, dust or any other contaminants, fuel, leaking WP or anything, replace the belt. If everything is good and the belt has been seen in perfect operating conditions it can be reasonably assumed to last it's full operational life span, whatever that may be. In practice mechanics won't offer to inspect a belt, mainly for the risk, it also costs, and why not up sell to a replacement. There is nothing wrong with that IMO as it's sound advice. But the customer is still free to take on the risk if they so choose to.

[trippytipo]

Did he say it was ok? And if so, did he give a guarantee?

Yes he said it should be fine for another 10,000 km, the next scheduled minor service.

No guarantees of course, but that's the nature of the beast.

Having said that, however, I will be changing it at the next 5,000 km oil and filter change service. 30,000 km and 3.4 years is a safe compromise, no?

[tony8028]

Yes he said it should be fine for another 10,000 km, the next scheduled minor service.

I thought it was impossible to predict this? 

[colcol]

Like if you 'inspect' the belt, you have to remove all the gaurds, to look at the belt, take the cam covers off, fit the cam locks, then get under the car and remove the lower flywheel cover, fit the flywheel lock, then loosen off cam tensioners, remove the balance shaft belt, then flick the timing off and with a magnifying glass check the teeth on the cam belt for any cracks, at this point you would have to be an absolute loony to put the second hand belt back, new brand name belts cost $40-$100 or whatever and the labor cost would be $700 or whatever, inspect the belt?, not really, Colin.

[trippytipo]

For your general amusement gentlemen, the British sense of humour:

http://www.alfaowner.com/Forum/alfa-145-and-146/158218-cambelt-fails-at-last-105486-miles.html

[colcol]

Bloke runs his twin spark 9 years and a million miles and just waits to see how far he can go until the belt breaks!, didn't mention the engine damage caused when the belt let go, but was happy that the belt broke where it did, and he was able to coast along, until he rolled up to a pub, where he could go in and have a pint to drown his sorrows, he had just been down to the 'Stealers' [Dealer], to get a new cambelt!, why doesn't he do what we do in Australia, and buy it from EB Spares [Egg & Bacon], such a daft bugger, most likely hasn't heard of EB Spares, i bet you London to a Brick he likely buys his parts from A.R. Australia, Colin.

[wankski]

hehe, that was smaky... he rebuilds twinnies every other night... he rebuilt his in 11 hours with parts laying around his garage...

[tony8028]

For your general amusement gentlemen, the British sense of humour:

http://www.alfaowner.com/Forum/alfa-145-and-146/158218-cambelt-fails-at-last-105486-miles.html

That is amazing! What an odd experiment....i cant see the pics because you need to log in....that would be interesting too.

It does give you some peace of mind that if you are SLIGHTLY overdue for a belt change, you'll probably be OK for an extra 10-15k (given that this guy drove 100K on one belt!).