I have a 2005 Toyota Sienna LE minivan which has just turned 90,000 miles. According to the owners manual, it is time to replace the timing belt. I know that it is a fairly expensive item to replace, and I was wondering, since the van is only 3 years old, whether it is really necessary at this point, or is this a money-maker for the dealer?
the belt should be replaced,where you have it done is your choice.
Serious damage could result if the belt breaks. Spend a little now or a LOT later.
My wife has a 2006 Sienna, the belt will have a lot less than 90k when it’s due for a change, but I will get it done regardless. I’ll have my mechanic do the belt and the water pump at that time instead of the dealer though.
Ed B.
Listen to everyone and get it done.
If you’d like some motivation - in the very first car I ever owned, I was fairly young and clueless (now I’m just older and clueless) and never paid attention to such things. In the middle lane of a busy highway at about 70mpg my car very suddenly died - no warning, no time to adjust - just dead. It turned out to be the timing belt.
I was actually even luckier than not meeting rapid death because the engine was a “non-interference” engine. So all I needed was a new belt - not a complete engine overhaul. I don’t know about the Sienna engine. You might not be so lucky.
And you will get mechanics telling you that they want to do a whole bunch of things (like e.g. the water pump mentioned by edb1961). These make sense since most of the cost of the timing belt change is in the labor of tearing things down. While it is torn down, other parts are reinstalled as new instead of your old ones.
Just find a mechanic that you can trust - and get quotes and recommendations if you like and post them back up here to double check if you like.
why quibble about a $600 repair that you actually need (according to the manual)?
how much maintenance have you really done to this van? i’m guessing not much right?
spend a little now, or get stranded on the side of the road later. you are lucky; at least your van is NOT an interference application (this means your engine wont be lunched when it does break.)
NOTHING printed in the manual is a money maker for the dealer with one exception that tries to point you to using the dealer for service/maintenance. The schedule is the minimum you need to perform so your vehicle will have a long hopefully trouble free life.
The real money maker for the dealer would be if it snapped and they get to rebuild the top end of your engine besides putting in the ignored timing belt, thousands of dollars.
www.gates.com, the timing belt maker (among other things), doesn’t list this engine, V6 2.3L, as an interference engine (as cappy208 noted).
I, still, wouldn’t push my luck.
Thanks for all the input. I will get it replaced as soon as possible.