OT - Decision Process: Replace Timing Belt Now or Wait?

[DerbyDad03]

2004 Honda Odyssey 3.5L SOHC, 24-Valve, VTEC V6 engine

The engine info is an educated guess since AFAIK that's the only engine the vehicle came with.

[aemeijers]

The whole concept of external vs. internal components hard for you to grasp? You replace water pump with the rubber band timing belt because the thing is apart anyway, and all you are paying for is the part. The stuff hung off the engine is much less labor to change, other than the evac/refill and pressure test on the A/C.

[Ron]

Please point out to me where the OP said the car in question has a internal water pump driven by the timing belt, smartass.

Not ALL cars (including the 3 that I own) have an internal water pump, Mr Know It All.

[Ron]

-

Well, Tegger is the person to answer your question.

[Ron]

BTW, a LOT of "garages" use shitty aftermarket parts that won't last as long as the factory part anyway.

Case in point.......I had the right front wheel bearing replaced on my Honda at 85,000 miles, now 10,000 miles later, it is already failing.

And that was at a chain tire store.

[Larry Fishel]

Looking up a timing belt kit on the Advance Auto web site shows the following note: "Timing Belt Kit;Interference engine" From NAPA: "Comments: Interference Engine"

Not exactly conclusive, but others will know better where to verify.

[jamesgangnc]

Kit come with a water pump? A lot of them are starting to bundle both.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Please point out to me where the OP said the car in question has a internal water pump driven by the timing belt, smartass. ===================

Everyone else in the discussion realized that we were talking about internal water pumps. Case closed.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

That may be the case, but my friend got the same answer from more than one shop, including the one that I trust...the one that I am sure can handle that job with ease. =============

And my excellent mechanic says "Are you a gambler? Will you be staying close to home until the belt fails? Then don't replace it."

He's 100% correct to ask these questions.

[George]

Sure, only because lots of folks seemed to have totally embraced cheap instead of value. We use an evil mom & pop place and he will explicitly offer both the junky parts and the quality parts when quoting a repair.

I wouldn't expect any different. But they do have great marketing...

[jamesgangnc]

e quoted text -

Even a cheap chinese bearing will last a lot longer than that. It was not lubricated properly when installed. You should go back and tell them you want if done again, right, for free.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Case in point.......I had the right front wheel bearing replaced on my Honda at 85,000 miles, now 10,000 miles later, it is already failing.

And that was at a chain tire store.

==================

You let chain tire stores work on your car? That invalidates EVERYTHING you've said in this discussion, and everything you say in the future, unless you repent.

[Jules Richardson]

Ours is a year older and has about 185,000 on it. Still on original battery, alternator and exhaust. It goes through oil and power steering fluid quite quickly, and one of the rear power windows gave up (motor fault), but I can't really complain.

cheers

Jules

[Jules Richardson]

I had one go on a Rover 216 (which had a Honda-built engine) at around

100k - I think it cost me about $60 for the pump and $40 for a new belt (made sense to do that while I was at it). Took me a couple of hours to do the work, so it wasn't too bad - the real pain was having it fail at work rather than home, so I had to get a tow from a friend.

I don't think I'd expect that to be in the owner's manual; it's more of a factory manual kind of thing.

On a lot of engines I've seen, the water pump runs at very high RPM, which is why they have a harder life than a lot of other engine components. They're not normally expensive, and it's usually trivial to do the work while the timing belt's being done anyway. Alternators, PAS pumps etc. don't stop the car from working and are easy to do without a significant amount of work, so they can just be replaced when they fail.

cheers

Jules

[Jules Richardson]

:-) It'd be like that here (well, 4 months of the year anyway), if we didn't make sure we always had food, blankets etc. in the trunk during snow season.

[Jules Richardson]

I've had it happen while passing once - it was a bit of a strange experience because there was so much wind noise (I had the roof down) that I couldn't hear the engine running anyway, so in the first instant it wasn't obvious what the fault was until I saw the tacho needle sitting at zero.

Turned out to be a broken wire to the coil; I was back on the road within five minutes after a temporary fix. Fortunately there was a big enough gap behind the line of cars that I was passing at the time that I could tuck in behind them when the engine died and then park up off the roadside.

cheers

Jules

[Jules Richardson]

My wife was just telling me yesterday how her mother used to have a Dodge Caravan until the transmission failed. She got it fixed, then it failed again. Then she replaced the whole vehicle... with another Dodge Caravan. The transmission failed up on that one, too - at which point she gave up and bought something else.

cheers

Jules

[DerbyDad03]

I've had Caravans and Voyagers, 4 total, early to mid-80's vintage.

They all had tranny issue's at one point or another.

[DerbyDad03]

I had a 1980 Mustang that had a bad Computer Module. I'd be humming along at highway speeds and the car would just shut down. Boom! All gauges to zero.

Slip her into neutral, re-start, and keep on cruising. I got so quick at it, I barely lost any speed.

[George]

But aren't you supposed to purposely omit all of the details when asking a question so a 100 post thread of guesses can form?