ok heres the deal a buddy of mine bought a car and was told that the timing belt was changed not too long ago. if we take off the valve cover and look at the belt itself is there any way to tell if its old, or new or what not of the belt and what to look for. So how can u tell about the belt by looking at it.

 

Give it a good visual inspection to see if it physically looks old. Is there gunk on the side of it, is the top of it still good and black, are any of the teeth showing anything unusual?

 

thats it? anything else?

 

?

 

You can also tell by looking at the part number and seeing if it has faded away.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DeDonDeRosa &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">thats it? anything else?</TD></TR></TABLE>If it was changed very recently you might be able to tell by how nice the label looks. If it's oily or greasy that's bad, even if it's fairly new.

Problem is, it's difficult to tell the difference between a belt with 10k miles vs. a belt with 90k miles. If it's not obviously brand new, you gotta decide whether to trust the guy who sold it to you.