My new/used '04 SVTF lunched the timing belt idler pulley at highway speed over the weekend, causing it to jump time and bend all the valves. Awesome. It's at 55-58k miles, and, obviously, has not had a timing belt replaced in that time. I'm wondering if anybody knows if this has been a common problem, if there's a TSB, yadda yadda.
I'm not at all pleased at the moment.
Ouch!
I haven't heard anything about it being a common problem. My car is approaching 80k miles and I'm sure it hasn't be changed.
Got an SVT? Might want to think about doing it soon. I'm seeing a handful of stories similar to mine about random pulley failures. Seems they're more common than premature belt destruction. And doing it in advance is cheap insurance.
Honestly, though, if it looks like 40k timing belt changes, I think my days as an SVT owner are numbered.
Normal Zetecs are non interference, no bent valves. With the minor modificatin to the SVT engine, I'm not sure. check it out first, and don't go by what the books say. Many Zetecs go farther than 40K miles, I've seen some go 100K on all the original stuff. Perhaps your used SVT had the speedometer repaired.
97,XXX on our '03 ZX3 that was new when we got it. Gonna do a Timing Belt, H2O Pump, and basic maintaince at 100k.
Zetec engine is non-interference and I believe that even with the variable cam the SVT is also. Never heard of one bending valves when either the belt or the pulley went bad. How do you kbnow the valves are bent?
Normal belt change interval is 100K but I have seen some that needed a new belt at 80K and know of one that has 160K on the original belt now.
Have heard of more tensioner pulley problems than belt problems. But in cases where the tensioner went bad there was planty of warning. You could hear them squealing from a block away.
The SVT race car I used to crew on had 40K race miles (1 to 4 hour endurance races) on it and never had any problems with either the pulley or the belt.
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