Timing belt change

Got the timing belt, idler, tensioner, water pump, tranny filter / fluid and pumpkin fluid changed at a local shop that specializes in Toyotas. Paid $526 bucks. Got the old parts back, you can shake the idler in your hand and hear / feel the slack. Had to be what was making the sorta grinding sorta hissing sound coming from the front of the engine, it's gone now.

Had 87,620 miles on it. belt appears brand new, as does the water pump.

Mine is an 02, a friend of mine just bought (with my help) an 03. In her book it says to change the belt at 90K. Guess belt and bearing technology changed between years, they last longer. Anyways if that's the case I'm good until 170K.

Just for giggles I called another garage and asked for an estimate. He of course asked what vehicle, I said "02 tacoma prerunner". He asked me "two wheel drive or four wheel drive". I repeated "prerunner". He again asked "2wd or 4wd". I changed my mind about that place real quick.

 

90,000 is recomended on the 3.4. I changed mine at 156,000 for the first time I got the truck at 146,000 so its not entirely my fault.

 

everything i can find (including calling the TRD department at Toyota) says 60K for the 02, but her 03 book says 90K. I would have let mine go too but my new job requires 200 mile drives at least once a week, and I had 87K anyways, piece of mind thing.

 

Oh yeah something else funny...my friend bought her 03 from a nissan dealer used car lot. the salesman there told her "you're gonna need to change that belt in about 20K miles, if it breaks it will destroy the engine!"

guess nissan belted engines are interference?

 

I sure hope they're not interference. I would be really paranoid all the time.

 

Toyota 3.4 isn't interference...which is why I considered letting mine go until 120K or so, just push my luck a little. Not sure about Nissan (no intention of checking it out, don't and probably won't own one). But yeah that would suck to worry about.

 

John................you're alive!!!!!! how ya been buddy??

 

There ya are! Was just asking Chris about ya!

Let's move to PM to keep the thread clean!

J

 

Yes they are interference and the Nissan 3.3L V6 timing belts are not shock tensioned like the Toyota 3.4L, so the timing belt starts to flap when they get older further increasing wear.

 

Sounds like a good price for all the labor involved, imo.

 

Yeah they're good guys too, they seem to actually enjoy working on cars. And their uniforms are dirty. I never trusted the "GM GoodWrench" type that can disassemble an entire vehicle, put it back together, and not even have dirt under their fingernails.

 

Ouch. Sounds like some Nissan owners are in for some "damn I wish I'd done that when I was supposed to" therapy.

 

Did my timing belt for the first time at 165K...bought it at 160K...also did the water pump and t-stat...have all the orginal receipts...it was never previously done...

 

Wow, I'd heard the belts were practically bulletproof but had no idea they were that tough. My belt looks brand new, but the idler had a lot of slack in it, when you shake it you can hear and feel the center section rattling around. The front of the engine was making a sorta metallic "hiss" sound, I'm thinking it was that fixing to fail. The water pump they pulled out looks brand new too, still tight in the bearings and no wear at all on the impeller. T-stat looks fine and was working fine, so it could probably have gone a lot longer too.

 

Ya and the mech said it was still in pretty good shape who knows probably could have made it to 200K lol

 

My water pump was leaking bad when we did mine. There was a huge crust built up in their that took forever to clean out. I think the water pump usually starts leaking before the belt gives out. I also reused the old pulleys as they were fine.

 

I just recently had my timing belt, water pump, and t-stat changed. I bought the truck from my dad who has always been the reactive type of person vs. being proactive before something goes bad. I bought the truck with 203k on it. The only maintenance that had EVER been done was routine oil changes, so I knew from owning a Tacoma before, that a little preventative maintenance was due. When I had the t-belt, etc. changed, the mechanic showed me the water pump and belt. The belt looked ok. It definitely didnt look like it had over 200k on it! The water pump had a lot of build up around the bottom lip. So I asked my dad if he ever had any trouble out of it. He said that he forgot to tell me, but around 160k he had an overheating issue. To make a long story short, he paid me back for the maintenance that was done.

 

So I think I'm hearing here "don't worry about the timing belt until at least 120K", correct?

How is it my 02 says 60K, but my friend's 03 says 90K? Did they start using better quality belts, idlers etc in 03, or did they just figure out the parts are good for at least 90K?

 

These are factory manuals? My factory manual says 90K and I have an '01.