Failure
Timing belts must be replaced at the manufacturer's recommended distance and/or time periods. Failure to replace the belt can result in complete breakdown or catastrophic engine failure, especially in interference engines. The owner's manual maintenance schedule is the source of timing belt replacement intervals, typically every 100,000 to 150,000 kilometres. It is common to replace the timing belt tensioner at the same time as the belt is replaced.
The usual failure modes of timing belts are either stripped teeth (which leaves a smooth section of belt where the drive cog will slip) or delamination and unraveling of the fiber cores. Breakage of the belt, because of the nature of the high tensile fibers, is uncommon. Correct belt tension is critical - too loose and the belt will whip, too tight and it will whine and put excess strain on the bearings of the cogs. In either case belt life will be drastically shortened. Aside from the belt itself, also common is a failure of the tensioner, and/or the various gear and idler bearings, causing the belt to derail.
Read more about this topic: Timing Belt
Famous quotes containing the word failure:
“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”
—Donn Pearce, U.S. writer, and Stuart Rosenberg. Camp commandant (Strother Martin)
“The clearest explanation for the failure of any marriage is that the two people are incompatible—that is, that one is male and the other female.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“The book borrower of real stature whom we envisage here proves himself to be an inveterate collector of books not so much by the fervor with which he guards his borrowed treasures and by the deaf ear which he turns to all reminders from the everyday world of legality as by his failure to read these books.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)