On many Ferrari’s it’s more important to change the belt on time since it’s easier to sell a car from the 308 era on with a fresh timing belt even if you’ve only put a few thousand miles on the car since the last time. Buyers want to see that the service has been done recently. Those engines can cost much more than a new Hyundai to replace.
Most supercars are owned by collectors (or rock stars) with multiple cars (in many cases multiple houses in multiple countries) and get driven very little. Unless, of course, they have a tenant at their Hawiian home named Thomas…
@cigroller - things may have changed since the last time I changed a timing belt. But on my 98 Pathfinder and my wifes 96 Accord the manufacturers recommended changes was 105k miles…while Gates was listing 60k mile change interval.
@oldtimer Yes, many ownwer’s manuals have several maintenance schedules. Our Maza3 has one for the US, one for Canada and one for Puerto Rico and Mexico. The non- US are all more severe, Canada because of the climate, Mexico and Puerto Rico because of the rough use and heat.
Strangely there is no a separate one for Alaska, but if I lived there I would use the Canadian service intervals. For the US there is Severe and Normal, as usual.
Well, I checked the Hyundai manual. It says 48 months or 60k. 60k I understand, but 48 months sadly seems rather short. And for extreme driving conditions it mentions 30k, 24 months or so.
By the way, the car was used in Texas for 2 years and stored in garage when not operated. Now it’s in California (also in garage when not used). I don’t think that constitutes cold weather much. In both places, there’s freezing temps (at night) but never long enough to produce real snow/ice.
And on a related note, several of you mention cold temps affect longetivity of belt, how about hot temps? I know Texas heat can be pretty hot.
@daluu - The wear on the belt results from a number of different things, in addition to cold temperature. Ozone (which is common both in Texas and parts of California) degrades rubber and some fibers/polymers, so just because it’s not used in the cold doesn’t mean it will provide longer service. And you’re right, hot temperatures also will contribute to wear.
Which engine do you have?
Timing belts are made if rubber. Rubber compounds are susceptible to both flex and heat and atmospheric degradation. Why wouldn’t there be two limits. I feel they err on the side of caution by combining the limits on both determined by testing. How much flex each car puts the belt through and the temperature it does it may vary. That may be why that differ.
You made an assumption that some of us said cold temps affect the longevity of the belt, and I for one did not intend that, but I can see how you made that jump.
Longevity is about the long term degradation of the belt. Actually heat does play a big part in that as heat speeds up the degradation. Cold actually slows it down some. But cold also make the rubber more brittle and for that reason, as the rubber degrades due to heat, its brittleness increases when it turns cold, so belts tend to break in cold weather.
They seem to really prefer to fail when you are on a lonely road, away form home, during an ice storm. Thats their favorite place to break. But they can break in just about any weather though.