badbumper

Morning,

I just realized that the civic I recently bought probably has never had the timing belt replaced. It's got 43K on it. I was trying to find the shop that serviced it but didn't have much luck with the first owner. It was sold right at about 7 years and had 2 more owners past that. I suspect it wasn't changed. I had an idea that if I could tell the water pump had been changed maybe the timing belt was too. If it hadn't been changed than most likely the belt wasn't. I did call the Ford dealer that sold it to the second owner and they had nothing in their records. The service person that I spoke to told me that her car is a 2002 and that it had 150K on it and the belt had never been changed. She said that she has her water pump checked and if it's good it means the timing belt is good. I think that's a crock. She also kept saying chain and I kept correcting her. She said "oh we always just say chain". Hmmmm. Anyway, after much reading, I think I've come to the conclusion that it should be replaced. I'm actually kind of nervous about driving it until I do. So, I called my regular mechanic and he said it would be 600$. That's for belt, water pump, tensioners, pulleys and idlers. I asked him if the parts were OE and he said no. He uses Gates and Continental. I called 2 dealers and one said 650$ for only timing belt and water pump; another said 925$ but they didn't specify for what. I'm going to call them both back today. Comments? I'm especially interested on your opinion about the gates and continental replacement parts. TIA!

MindBomber

Gates makes good belts, I would use one on my car without hesitation. If you want to pay the additional cost for OE specific parts, I'm sure your mechanic would be willing to indulge the request if you pay the difference in cost however. $500-600 in labour + parts would be a fair price.

badbumper

Good to know. I had just read on some thread yesterday that the belt and pump (i think) sb be OE but that the other stuff didn't matter. I trust this particular mechanic however.

badbumper

Called dealer #1 back and he said that all I needed was a water pump, timing belt, serpentine belt and antifreeze to the tune of 615$ and he has a 75$ coupon. I asked him about the tensioners, pulleys and idlers. He said my car doesn't have idlers and pulleys and with the low miles the tensioners don't need to be replaced. I said 'my car doesn't have idlers and pulleys?'. Then he backtracked and said well it does and then went off into some explantion that I didn't understand. So, now I'm confused as to why my mechanic is replacing idlers, tensioners and pulleys when the dealer says I don't need them. 1 thing I like about my mechanic is that I trust him. I feel that if I take it to the dealer my 615$ - coupon is going to turn into alot more because "while we were in there we found these other things wrong".
I'm calling the second dealer now to see what they have to say.

badbumper

Dealer #2 actually told me the exact same thing. Except he was 300$ more. He had no explanation as to why there was that much of a price difference except that he said maybe they didn't include the water pump in the quote. But they did.

MindBomber

Your car has a tensioner, I would replace it, it's not uncommon for them to start to squeak in between timing belts and if they do it's a labour extensive (and therefore expensive) job to replace just it. If you replace it during a timing belt change, the added cost is little more than the part. The need to replace the pulley is debatable, I would not.

Honda rates water pumps and tensioners as lasting the equivalent of two timing belt changes, so technically you do not need to replace them at this point. However a bad water pump can cause a cascading series of problems if it does fail, as it's fundamentally important component required to cool the engine. It's also extremely expensive to replace if it fails, like the tensioner.

badbumper

My guess as to why my non delaer mechanic is replacing the tensioner and pulley is that it's part of the kit he is getting. Also, i haven't seen and mention of idlers. Is that part of the tensioner or ????