Poor quality timing belts and components, DON'T BUY THEM

[montana tom]

Recently I installed a timing belt and component kit on a 2006 obw.  Simple job , went well.... Ordered parts from local parts house... first mistake.. should have gone to subaru. Parts that were sold to me were dayco ,(american made right ??)  they looked good ,nothing on the box about being made in china.... new belt ,new tensioner ,new idlers. Cars owner was out of town for a few weeks, so her husband picked up the car and brought it home. 2 weeks later on a friday night I get a call , 50 miles down the road and her car looses power coasts to the side and now is cranking over "fast" ...classic broken belt. I told them to have it towed in and i would see what had happened. That night,I am going over in my head ,is there any way i forgot to tighten something ?? I've installed over 100 of these so I doubt it but.... maybe i was distracted.  Sunday morning instead of relaxing, I'm at the shop popping the covers off to see what went wrong. As soon as i had the main cover off it was very apparent, the roller on the brand new tensioner self destructed in 50 miles !!!  destroyed everything. what was left of the belt was melted to the remains of the roller, the other idlers and the water pump all had multi colored rollers from getting to hot. After talking to the parts house about warranty repair (yes they will cover it ) I removed the heads and yup bent all 32 valves .  So now heads are off getting resurfaced and new valves and seals. My customer has several vehicles so she is not stranded and her car will be good as new when she gets it back .. even gets new head gaskets. I however had to bump scheduled cars out to fit her in . I wasn't allowed to replace  the valves,parts house had to do it at their shop. I'm waiting however long till they send them back. They will pay my time but at the warranty rate (A real ripoff).  While the steam was slowly venting out my ears I called over to the subaru stuff shop in Idaho, told them what had happened.  They informed me that not only were dayco parts being made in china but GATES was as well !  I was shocked I have recommended gates kits to many people and installed more of them than subaru parts. They said gates had been good for years but recently started manufacturing in china!!!  They will now only install original subaru or koyo (Japanese made) timing parts.  I guess from this point on despite the extra cost that is all I will install as well . 

[DaveT]

I've always gone to Subaru for the timing parts on the interference engines. For a 100k mile parts, it's not worth the risk to "save" $.

 

For my ea82s, I made rebuildable idlers and buy high temp contact seal bearings from industrial bearing supply shops. I've used gates belts until now. Not so sure about that now, going forward.

[MR_Loyale]

Wow. So Gates is outsourcing to China now? Shame on them. I would rather pay more for a quality made part especially when it comes to critical components like timing parts.

Time for an email.

CorpComm12@gates.com

Edited August 17, 2016 by MR_Loyale

[somick]

Watch this:

 

[1 Lucky Texan]

Watch this:

 

THANK YOU for posting this!

[bratman2]

I just checked the kit I bought for my wife's Forester XT. A small pulley was made in Korea and is so labeled on the box, T41239. Waterpump is made in China and will not be installed. The belt is made in Japan and so stamped, tensioner and all other pulleys are stamped NTN Japan. Maybe I got lucky. Bought mine 4 months or so from Rock Auto. Glad you posted this as I might not have noticed with the waterpump.

[1 Lucky Texan]

coupla Gates kits on Amazon have reviews mentioning - and showing - chinese parts. Afew dated in the JUne-July timeframe and one I saw as early as February of this year.

[Fairtax4me]

Just bought a gates kit for my 96 a few weeks ago. Good deal on amazon.

Idlers were NSK and Koyo. Those are OE parts.

Tensioner was GMB. Not the greatest quality but they work well enough for a 60k interval.

Belt was a Gates belt, problem with the belt. It was too short. Too much tension on the belt when the tensioner was slid over. It actually kept the tensioner position from pushing out at all.

I've had this happen before years ago, but it was with a much cheaper PCI kit.

Didn't expect this from a Gates belt. I always use gates V and serpentine belts if I can.

Dayco I dont expect great quality from. I've used their timing kits before and haven't ever really been impressed. Serpentine belts don't last long, and their small ribbed belts tend to stretch quite a lot before they stop squealing.

[idosubaru]

I've always gone to Subaru for the timing parts on the interference engines. For a 100k mile parts, it's not worth the risk to "save" $.

 

For my ea82s, I made rebuildable idlers and buy high temp contact seal bearings from industrial bearing supply shops. I've used gates belts until now. Not so sure about that now, going forward.

 

+1 and NICE HIT - can you explain that rebuildable idler thing?  the XT6 pulley sets are $400, i'd love to see what you've done.  can you start another thread about that?

 

i inject grease in the bearing face seals - which works but deforms the face seal getting the needle fitting under there.  

i've tried drilling and installing a grease nipple or making a resealable hole in the face seal - but haven't beeen able to do that without damaging the face seal and the nipples are obviously too big to fit reaonsably. 

[carfreak85]

Montana Tom, what is the warranty rate?  My employer pays the national shop rate average of about $120/hour.

[montana tom]

Well here in the backwoods my straight time is only $65.00 hr (things change slow around here). They are not saying, parts house is guessing $45.00.  or pay my rate and challenge book time hrs     9.1 by my books for a head gasket both sides.  We will see ... at least they are not saying its somehow my fault! 

[Caboobaroo]

I use nothing but Mitsuboshi timing belts and serpentine belts on Subarus at work. I've run two other branded serpentine belts on the XT6 with issues. Ordered a factory one, branded Mistuboshi. Never have had an issue with the timing belts.

[DaveT]

Some of the idlers are rebuildable as they are.  Just press off the old bearings and support bosses, and install new.

For ones like the EA82 tensioners, I drilled out the swaged side of the riser.  Turned a new riser on a lathe.  There needs to be a shoulder so the new bearing presses on and sits .530" from the surface of the flat bracket part.  Drill through the center while still chucked, tap the front end for a socket head cap screw to hold the bearing on.  Turn the opposite end down to fit the hole in the flat bracket part, swage the riser onto the flat bracket.

 

I'll try to get a webpage up in the next few days with a picture or 2.

 

Before I made these, I tried re greasing a bearing or 2.  OK for a short term fix, but I wouldn't trust them, especially on a 100K mile service interval. 

Back when I made them, there were no aftermarket idlers, Subaru wanted $90 each, and bearings were about $9.00.  And I found they needed replacement around 50K miles, not the 60K interval in the fsm.

[idosubaru]

Oh yeah right those strange EA82 tensioners. Nice work finding another way and being able to use beatings of your choosing.

What ton press gets the normal bearings out? all the XT6's are like EJ bearings and just press out.

 

I used to buy the EA82 kits like 10 years ago they were like $60-$80.

[DaveT]

I just use a bearing splitter with a moderately large gear puller.

[ThosL]

Thanks for posting.  So which parts place besides Subaru is doing due diligence?  Napa?  What would you buy from Auto Zone or Advance?

[heartless]

Wow,    I guess I got lucky - ordered the Gates kit for the 02 Forester not too long ago. All of the pulleys had the NSK / Japan on the bearings and a gates belt...

[idosubaru]

Subaru parts are always good others vary.

Where you buy is largely inconsequential - though Napa often has some better parts but often they're carrying the same stuff too.

 

1. Subaru

2. Install ( have a machine shop) new Japanese bearings in your existing pulleys

3. Gates or others with Japanese bearings

 

 

 

 

 

We used to recommend theimportexperts on eBay, good prices and you could call them and ask for specific pulleys and they'd put a kit together for you. Then Gates kits were really cheap on Amazon so that's been a go to source of parts for quite a while now.

 

1. I would guess they probably had a higher failure rate than Subarus but not high enough to deter from OEM prices.

 

2. One experience is anecdotal and means little by itself. Subaru bearings fail too...if the logic is "only buy parts with 0% failure rates" there's no parts you can buy.

 

So it's comes down to whether or not this is a permanent trend (Chinese parts being a probable indicator) or a percentage kink in the supply chain or China trying to throw the election by inserting inferior parts in Subarus. Lol

[idosubaru]

I just use a bearing splitter with a moderately large gear puller.

Woah crack you get the bearings out with a gear puller? I've tried wailing with a hammer and i start breaking them before the bearing moves.

I wanna run to the garage!

[idosubaru]

Thanks Dave!

[DaveT]

Not sure if there's might be something confused here?

The tensioner sheaves are sheet metal, pull off fairly easy. Removing the riser from the flat bracket, drill the sage off. The originals the riser and the center race are 1 piece, which is why I turned my own on a lathe.

The gear idler, just use the gear puller / splitter as needed..

 

I use an old bearing with the outer race ground down a few thou as a tool to get the new one pressed into the proper depth. Note all EA82 stuff. But the newer ones look like they should be handled similarly.

[idosubaru]

I got it Dave I know exactly what you mean. The xt6 passengers side tensioner is like the EA82, the rest of the pulleys and drivers side tensioner are like an EJ.

 

My other reply was directed towards the original poster and beating quality.

[LeolaPA]

Seems like for this to happen, that roller was locked somehow from the very beginning.

 

Anyway,  I did my first belt this year, and got a kit from a guy on Ebay sixstarparts, for about $265.  Was all the original parts except the belt was Mitsuboshi.  I think the pump was not subaru, but a very high quality unit call Paraut.

Edited August 20, 2016 by LeolaPA

[ccrinc]

We used to use all ACL rod and main bearings, but they began outsourcing their "regular" ones to Japan.  Bye-bye, ACL! We'll still get their race bearings "when they're available"., which isn't often.

So, in looking around for another decent (and decently priced) alternative, we started using King race bearings instead.  Made in Israel.  The first time we tried them, we didn't like them.  Now, they're pretty much state of the art.

 

These days when I see "made in China", I just go "so what else is new?"  Remember when people used to say that about Japan?

 

ps: for timing belts on zero tolerance engines, it's Subaru Genuine all the way, IMO!

Edited August 20, 2016 by ccrinc

[1 Lucky Texan]

There may be some Chinese corps that do well. Supposedly, the ones that are ISO-9000 certified by European auditors are OK. But maybe not the ones certified by Chinese auditors.