Toyota: Timing Belt or Chain?

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Does your Toyota vehicle have a timing belt or chain?
Thinking about buying a used one and figuring upcoming maintenance costs?

Here's a chart done by Toyota that tells all.
http://toyota.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/7690/~/does-my-vehicle-have-a-timing-belt-or-timing-chain%3F
 
Don't let a timing belt sway you off on a four cylinder engine. Timing belts eventually got pretty much dead on reliable, regardless of the vehicle manufacture if they were replaced as prescribed in the owners manual. Americans gripped about timing belts and now the Japanese makes switched to timing chains. Timing chain issues suck to deal with worse so than replacing a timing belt.
 
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RE: timing belt vs timing chain, to each of their merit: they both have strengths and weaknesses.

T-belt: silent operation, timing doesn't shift as the mileage creeps up, etc. been used in mass-production autombiles since the late 60s.

You must, however, be diligent with the T-belt replacement interval. Otherwise: if t-belt shreds/snaps, you are pretty much done for (interference engine)

chain: older technology, been used for a long, long time, widely accepted.

bad: chain stretches over time and becomes noisy, causing timing shifts. Poorly designed engines (e.g. Xtera 4cyl type), the chain is a major, if not frequent trouble.

Servicing cost can be high, for you need to replace all the sprockets, etc. along with a new chain and chain rails, guides, tensioners, etc.

I've used both and see no such thing called "one superior than the other". Both have their strengths and faults.

T-belt servicing, alongside with tensioners, water pumps, etc. must be included as part of the automobile ownership scheduled maintenance scheme, which most avg joes don't seem to understand nowadays.

Lastly: chain can also snap and fail also.

Q.
 
Chains and guides throw a bunch of junk in the oil if there is a polymer-oil incompatibility. Plus tensioner sticking can be an issue with the "wrong" oil. I got chains:)
 
Chains are superior in design, but they made the path more complicated than it use to be on say a 289 Ford engine. No one ever had issues with timing chains that were in use before timing belts.
 
chains are superior as long as the guides do not grenade, ask any GM owner how theirs is working out.
 
Originally Posted By: Donald
Chains are superior in design, but they made the path more complicated than it use to be on say a 289 Ford engine. No one ever had issues with timing chains that were in use before timing belts.


I hope you are making a joke. Many V8 timing chains wore enough by around 100k miles to skip a tooth. I replaced beaucoup chains and sprockets, on those old OHV motors. Valve jobs and timing chains....2 things you could count on needing.
 
Chains have as many problems as belts. Ask any Nissan KA-series owner about the longevity of a timing chain. Many domestic V-8s would jump time with lots of miles, too...owing no doubt to the nylon gears used to try to quiet the chain system down. Chains are simply noisier.

After changing a timing belt on one of our cars, I have more respect for the belt system. I used to be dead-set against timing belts, but it was a breeze to change...almost a joy. Access was straight forward and well thought-out. Timing belts do typically require more room than chains, both for the physical components and for designed-in access (if done right). I think that's one reason chains are so popular: they can cram an engine up close to something without worrying about maintenance access.

Both have merits and demerits. I'm as open to one as the other at this point. I've owned some extremely reliable timing chain systems (Cadillac Northstar) and one that is well-known for durability problems (Nissan KA24E). I agree that chains have the potential to offer less maintenance, but with the big caveat that they must be designed right.
 
If they made it a bit more ... serviceable ... and if it didn't completely render the engine completely inoperable when it snaps, I'd be more in favor of belts.

Until then ... they just aren't for me. I don't feel like dissembling the entire front of the engine, removing the motor mount just to have to buy a special tool to lock in the camshafts and if I'm not dead-on, I destroy the engine.

Or, I could just pay a shop $1000 to change the timing belt. No thanks ... I'll stick to chains for now.

I'll probably help a friend do a timing chain in a Jeep 4.0. It stretched. But it is original - there's no way a timing belt would have have safely made it 200K and 25 years. Very small chance it will jump time or fail, but even if it does, no biggie - just put a new one on.
 
Originally Posted By: 4wheeldog
Originally Posted By: Donald
Chains are superior in design, but they made the path more complicated than it use to be on say a 289 Ford engine. No one ever had issues with timing chains that were in use before timing belts.


I hope you are making a joke. Many V8 timing chains wore enough by around 100k miles to skip a tooth. I replaced beaucoup chains and sprockets, on those old OHV motors. Valve jobs and timing chains....2 things you could count on needing.


Yep.

Had a couple of timing chains go out. Including the chain on my 1970 Ford with a 302 2bbl. Started and died one day. Couldn't figure it out...until I checked the ignition timing, which was way off...

Sure enough, timing chain had jumped a tooth, or two, and the engine simply wouldn't run. Simple path. Simple chain. Simple failure.

That was at 120,000 miles.
 
One other thing not mentioned on timing belt replacement is the recommended replacement of camshaft and crank seals and idlers which a subset job within a job. And don't forget the water pump etc..... Now Fords' new 1.0 three cylinder eco boost engine runs the belt in the oil which takes care of the old saw " if you don't replace the seals they'll leak and ruin your new timing belt".....
 
Originally Posted By: 4wheeldog


I hope you are making a joke. Many V8 timing chains wore enough by around 100k miles to skip a tooth. I replaced beaucoup chains and sprockets, on those old OHV motors. Valve jobs and timing chains....2 things you could count on needing.


That was only when nylon "silent" cam gear sprockets were used. With a steel cam gear, the timing set would last several hundred thousand miles before failing. The old v8s had no tensioner, so timing might wander around a few degrees as the chain got sloppy.

Today chains have virtually pushed belts out of the market (again) because of the requirements for very tight timing control for emissions and efficiency are achievable with cam phasers and chain tensioners that can correct for chain wear, and belts are just not reliable enough for the kind of neglect most cars get.

Chains for the win- I'll never voluntarily own another rubberband-timed vehicle again. Its a throw-away component for throw-away engines.
 
I have no experience in American chains or the trouble that Nissans seem to have... but in the world of Toyota, I would take a chain every time.

Proper design and implementation with zero maintenance.
 
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: 4wheeldog


I hope you are making a joke. Many V8 timing chains wore enough by around 100k miles to skip a tooth. I replaced beaucoup chains and sprockets, on those old OHV motors. Valve jobs and timing chains....2 things you could count on needing.


That was only when nylon "silent" cam gear sprockets were used. With a steel cam gear, the timing set would last several hundred thousand miles before failing. The old v8s had no tensioner, so timing might wander around a few degrees as the chain got sloppy.

Today chains have virtually pushed belts out of the market (again) because of the requirements for very tight timing control for emissions and efficiency are achievable with cam phasers and chain tensioners that can correct for chain wear, and belts are just not reliable enough for the kind of neglect most cars get.

Chains for the win- I'll never voluntarily own another rubberband-timed vehicle again. Its a throw-away component for throw-away engines.






Wrong again. I changed out lots of iron sprockets on chebbies and Fords. The problem wasn't sprocket wear......It was the chains getting too long. The oils of the era did not keep the pins and side plates from wearing, so the chains "Stretched". This is with the "Hyvo" or "Silent" chains. They just flat wore out, irregardless of the sprocket material used.
 
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Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: 4wheeldog


I hope you are making a joke. Many V8 timing chains wore enough by around 100k miles to skip a tooth. I replaced beaucoup chains and sprockets, on those old OHV motors. Valve jobs and timing chains....2 things you could count on needing.


That was only when nylon "silent" cam gear sprockets were used. With a steel cam gear, the timing set would last several hundred thousand miles before failing. The old v8s had no tensioner, so timing might wander around a few degrees as the chain got sloppy.

Today chains have virtually pushed belts out of the market (again) because of the requirements for very tight timing control for emissions and efficiency are achievable with cam phasers and chain tensioners that can correct for chain wear, and belts are just not reliable enough for the kind of neglect most cars get.

Chains for the win- I'll never voluntarily own another rubberband-timed vehicle again. Its a throw-away component for throw-away engines.






Nope.

All steel chain sets in old V-8s wore out far more quickly than folks realize.

The chain set on my 1970 Ford 302 was all steel. It just plain wore to the point that it jumped two teeth in a cold start and wouldn't run again.

I preemptively put a new chain in my 1970 Olds Cutlass V-8 (350 Olds motor, from a good running car in the yard) and it's a good thing I did.

That all steel chain (no nylon) set was very loose with roughly 100,000 miles on the engine. It went another 80,000 miles on the original block, pistons, heads and valves with that new timing chain.
 
In fleets of Dodge 318's and 360's we routinely wore a timing chain down in 150k to 180k miles no matter what we did. Some were all steel sets and some had nylon driven gears on the cam. Occasionally a nylon gear would strip and timing might jump.

9 times out of ten we simply popped in a few pushrods, maybe a rocker arm or two and went on our way with a new timing set for a couple hundred dollars max. Ran many of them over 200k miles after that.

But truly, NO WAY did any older engines last nearly as long or run as well as newer engines. In the last few generations of V8's we run here the engine life is nearly unlimited with many exceeding 300k miles easily without any major servicing. Some go even farther...
 
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: 4wheeldog


I hope you are making a joke. Many V8 timing chains wore enough by around 100k miles to skip a tooth. I replaced beaucoup chains and sprockets, on those old OHV motors. Valve jobs and timing chains....2 things you could count on needing.


That was only when nylon "silent" cam gear sprockets were used. With a steel cam gear, the timing set would last several hundred thousand miles before failing. The old v8s had no tensioner, so timing might wander around a few degrees as the chain got sloppy.

Today chains have virtually pushed belts out of the market (again) because of the requirements for very tight timing control for emissions and efficiency are achievable with cam phasers and chain tensioners that can correct for chain wear, and belts are just not reliable enough for the kind of neglect most cars get.

Chains for the win- I'll never voluntarily own another rubberband-timed vehicle again. Its a throw-away component for throw-away engines.






We finally agree on something!
 
Originally Posted By: Astro14
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: 4wheeldog


I hope you are making a joke. Many V8 timing chains wore enough by around 100k miles to skip a tooth. I replaced beaucoup chains and sprockets, on those old OHV motors. Valve jobs and timing chains....2 things you could count on needing.


That was only when nylon "silent" cam gear sprockets were used. With a steel cam gear, the timing set would last several hundred thousand miles before failing. The old v8s had no tensioner, so timing might wander around a few degrees as the chain got sloppy.

Today chains have virtually pushed belts out of the market (again) because of the requirements for very tight timing control for emissions and efficiency are achievable with cam phasers and chain tensioners that can correct for chain wear, and belts are just not reliable enough for the kind of neglect most cars get.

Chains for the win- I'll never voluntarily own another rubberband-timed vehicle again. Its a throw-away component for throw-away engines.






Nope.

All steel chain sets in old V-8s wore out far more quickly than folks realize.

The chain set on my 1970 Ford 302 was all steel. It just plain wore to the point that it jumped two teeth in a cold start and wouldn't run again.

I preemptively put a new chain in my 1970 Olds Cutlass V-8 (350 Olds motor, from a good running car in the yard) and it's a good thing I did.

That all steel chain (no nylon) set was very loose with roughly 100,000 miles on the engine. It went another 80,000 miles on the original block, pistons, heads and valves with that new timing chain.


I don't deny that it might happen, but its not the NORM for all-steel timing sets to get loose enough to jump a tooth in less than 200k miles like the plastic cam gear sets would. But its kinda splitting hairs because even plastic cam gear timing sets aren't in danger of failing until tens of thousands of miles past where a belt would typically have to be replaced.

I put a steel set on my old 318 when the nylon gear jumped time- ran it another 260,000 (not a typo) miles with the steel chain/gear set. Same for a '66 383- changed the "silent" plastic gear before it jumped, ran the steel gear over 200k. Factory timing set (steel) on a 92 5.2 Magnum- 250,000 miles without issue. A friend had a loose chain on a 78 Chevy 350 wear a gash in the chain cover, but never jump- over 300,000 miles ( he did replace it when he replaced the cover, and it was loose but not enough to jump). 90s Ford 4.6 SOHC engines will run well over 300k miles in police-then-taxi service as a matter of routine without jumping time.

There are certainly BAD chain implementations also- the Chrysler 2.7L v6 comes to mind (there wasn't really anything good about that engine). People have mentioned the Nissans. There have been issues with the 5.7 Hemi with a particular rear-end ratio in automatic-transmission Challengers, MDS, and VVT conspiring to set up a harmonic that damaged the tensioner over time causing the chain to break (a recall was instituted). And a few others. But all in all chains are still the more durable option for the most part.
 
I've not had any particular problem with 1960's-70's timing sets with 'cam in block'-changed a few. The long chains with todays overhead cams do worry me a bit as the setup is much more complicated. I think the timing belts are a little better as a system 'damper' but don't like the interference engine damage that usually occurs when they let go-which time frame/miles seems wildly variable.
 
The M20 in my 528e s is belt driven. It is a leisurely afternoon's work. A belt and tensioner is 35$. A 35$ GMB water pump that lasted better than the priceier Euro parts. It wasn't part timing set anyway. It was just right there. Modern timing chains for a twin cam V6 are pretty busy and loaded with some sort of plastic guides . These get brittle with time and heat cycling. A chunk breaks off and jams something below. Or a tensioner seizes. The last gen 4.0 in the Ranger and Exploder died from a rear cassette failure of the timing set. Some I4s are non interference. the engine just stops. Even on an interference engine, the pistons may have dimples from wild valves , but often the damage is confined to the valves and rockers. The interval on the M20 belt was a very conservative 60 K miles or 4 yrs. The last one I changed had 75 K miles/7yrs on it.
 
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