I was told by the dealer that my timing belt tensioner is loose. Will this cause my timing belt to break? Dealer wants to replace everything.

 

 

i forgot to tell ya all. it is a 2000 legacy outback with 80,000 miles on it. My check engine light came on yesterday, and the car seems to hesitate while accerlating at low speeds.

What year/model car is it? I would suspect that the tensioner is loose because the belt has stretched, and if that is the case you may be in danger of it breaking, but more likely the belt could slip. The first thing is to know what year/model your car is so we can figure out if it will damage your engine if the belt breaks or slips.

 

Keith

I was told by the dealer that my timing belt tensioner is loose. Will this cause my timing belt to break? Dealer wants to replace everything.

 

Dealers want to replace everything.

 

And that belt tensioner is expensive.

 

They can be checked. The Field Service Manual goes into how to check it. But you need fairly specialized tools for this.

 

Unfortunately, if you choose to keep it and have guessed wrong...then you run the risk of much bigger problems. Throw that belt and you could be looking at a head replacement.

 

How many miles on the car ?

Here in Oz the timing belts are scheduled to be replaced every 60k miles (100k kilometres).

If it has done 80k miles without being replaced it should be ready , what is your service schedule?.