James Sweet said:
Personally I'd change it at 75K or sooner, the engine will be destroyed if
it breaks, it's not worth the gamble of a few thousand bucks worth of
engine over a couple hundred to have the belt changed.
Having said that, we got the wife's cars timing belt changed 6 months (well
within the mileage) sooner than the recommended interval at the local
dealership.
3 months after it'd been done - the tensioner shredded the belt.
They then tried to get over £500 out of us to fix it - think I got them done
to £250. But it was clearly shoddy workmanship - never been back to them
since.
My own car was returned to be with a ticking noise after having had a timing
belt change (this fault didn't appear shortly afterwards, but immediately
while driving away from the dealership) - returned to them to discover that
the tensioner was at the point of breaking - they wanted over £100 from me
for a new tensioner - they eventually did it for free.
Point I'm trying to make is, cambelt changes scare me to death, I have a
100% record of two different dealerships mucking it up! It's not a job for
your average spotty oik employed for £5.50 an hour while the dealership
charges you £75 an hour.
I have since found 2 VERY good mechanics (specialists for the cars we now
own) who'll be getting our money instead, but finding someone with such a
reputation isn't that easy.