The 05 outback blew it's timing belt yesterday, and, before you all jump over me for not replacing it, it wasn't due for another 30,000-35,000 miles. Previous owner had it done, and it looks like the place that did it used a cheap no name belt (literally, there is no brand name or markings on it anywhere). Only reason I can guess that it failed is was because it was a cheap belt, as everything else rotates smoothly and looks to be in good condition. Not that it matters much at this point what made it fail... I checked the valve lash and found a few that had excessive lash, so I tore the engine down and certainly enough I've got a few exhaust valves that were bent. I need a place that will rebuild the heads. I know this question has come up a few times, but I can't find any of those threads. My guess is it does not need any milling since there was no overheating (head gaskets were in good shape), just cleaned, new valves, seals, maybe springs, seats, and lash. Second part is the pistons. They've got a few small, small marks from hitting the valves but look to be pretty good. My gut feeling is that these are good to run (knock down the high edges to prevent hot spotting), especially in a higher mileage vehicle (180K). I don't want to put the engine back together to just take it apart later because I didn't replace it right now. Don't want to replace unnecessary items either though... Never had a broken timing belt or damaged pistons before, so I'm not sure if they're good to go or not.
Just out of curiosity, the belt broke about 70,000 miles after being installed? Any idea how much time (years) passed since it was replaced? I did my '05 at 10 years of age, but it had only about 70,000 miles on it
Yes, only about 70,000 mile on the new belt. Belt was done in 2012 from the records I have, and the Subaru schedule is either 105,000 miles or 8.75 years (105 months), which ever comes first. So by either one, I was well under what it should have made it to if it was a good quality item. No oil or coolant had seeped into the timing belt area (cover seal was intact and the area below the timing belt cover and the belt were both dry), so it hadn't been eaten away by oil/coolant or slipped because of those. Hence my conclusion that using a cheap belt was the result of the failure. The worst part is, a good belt is only like $50. It's not like it's $500 part....
Sucks that people cut corners to save so little money when consequences can have such a large monetary impact in the future. It gets even worse when you're talking about houses. Good luck with the repair.
Not discounting the fact it could or been a cheap belt but alot of belts if on for that long all markings will be worn off from the tensioner running on the top side of the belt. Either way ****ty deal and i guess if it was me i would just do the whole motor or buy a known good running one.
Yep, with that many miles on it, it is normal for all the markings to be worn off. I've seen oem parts fail before the interval so hard to say it's a cheap part. Also the pistons look fine, the slight collision will change the coimpression so minimal it won't make any difference at all. Just get the heads rebuilt and slap it back together with oem MLS head gaskets, timing belt, water pump, thermostat, and don't skip out on any of the timing rollers/tensioner.
Didn't think about the tensioner wearing off the marking- never seen that before on the timing belts I've done, but I haven't done that many either! Sometimes things do just fail unfortunately.... Thanks for the input on the pistons jmyhre05 (as always, your expertise is a huge asset to this forum), I figured they were good but wanted to be safe. I cleaned the pistons more since I took those photos and didn't find any cracks either. I've got an Aisin timing belt kit on the way (Mitsuboshi Belt, NTN bearings for the idlers/tenioners, and an Aisin Japanese water pump), OEM thermostat+gasket, Fel-Pro gaskets (MLS HG, intake, exhaust, valve cover and washers, spark plug gaskets). Lots of room to get at the leaking steering rack I was going to do this summer, so time to do that too. I was already planning on doing (and have the stuff for) the oil/filter, coolant, spark plugs, differential gear lube, transmission fluid, engine air filter, cabin air filter, and brake fluid in about 200 miles since much of that is due. On the bright side, in regards to the coolant and oil, at least the timing belt went before I did those and I don't have to do them a second time! First time I've ever had a failure that rendered a car un-driveable, but I've got other vehicles I can use in the meantime. None as comfortable as the Outback though
Sorry for your loss. Dumb rookie question: The half moon shaped indentions on piston was that from the valves hitting the piston? Other question, Did you occosionally check the timing belt to see how it was looking. Shape and or streatching. Last one, Single or dual OHC? Thanks for topic my 2010 forester is due for T.belt replacement so im keeping my eye on it until i win the lotto. Lol..
The half moon shapes that are black are normal features of the piston surface that give the valves additionally clearance while the engine is running with the timing set correctly. The little dents around where it is yellowish are from the valve hitting the pistons. I never checked it, as the only proper way to check the timing belt is to take it off and bent it gently backwards to see if cracks appear in it. And at that point (having taken pretty much everything off required for a timing belt replacement), it is just a smarter idea to replace the belt. You can see if the timing belt is super bad (missing chunks, obviously cracked, etc) just by taking the cover off and looking at it. The belts rarely get that bad though, as they usually fail far earlier than that....The belt that failed on this one still checks out perfectly even doing the bend test, so you can have failures of belts that look perfectly find while on the car. It was a SOHC engine. I'd highly recommend you get the timing belt and associated components done if they are due- even if you are a little short on funds. There might be someone people here who can help out. I got a little lucky that this failure didn't take out the pistons, but even with that, this still was about $1000 and I did all the labor except for fixing the heads. Having a shop do that might run 3k-4k. Or you put in an engine with an unknown history and potentially have the same problem all over again.
