[Ernie]

That is exactly what my belt looks like.

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[ds968]

Black ? I thought the racing belt from Gates was Blue . At least that's what Rock Auto and a couple of other sites that carries it indicated . Mine should arrive this Friday, so I'll see.

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[Waylander]

I have found a UK seller of Gate racing belts, i have dropped them an email this morning,

 

Update on the other boxless belt, I got an ebay returns label this morning from them, I did send them a message saying i would accept a belt in a box as exchange,

never got a reply

Black ? I thought the racing belt from Gates was Blue . At least that's what Rock Auto and a couple of other sites that carries it indicated . Mine should arrive this Friday, so I'll see.

 

 

even the one in RS Barn's picture is Black

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[Ernie]

Waylander, I saw somewhere that the racing bels, come in either blue or black.

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[ds968]

Rock Auto has it shown as blue, as it's also indicated on my order confirmation Gates site indicates they come in either black or blue . But here's a weird thing ; one of the other sites I was on ( can't remember if it was PartsGeek, or Europarts, or something else ) had this high performance belt listed as follows : 1992 Porsche 968. - black. 1993 -95 Porsche 968 - blue . No clue why that is, but it definitely stood out as something very odd. I do know there are some small differences between the 92 and the subsequent years, but I thought the ENGINE itself was exactly the same , right ? So not sure why the high performance belts would have to be different so they don't mistake the 92 for any other ..?

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[Ryan]

Belts are the same as even the 87S uses it. SO all 16 valve four bangers use the same one.

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[Waylander]

I got my refund.....

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[ds968]

Received the timing belt today from Rock Auto. The website shows it as blue, my order confirmation from them indicates it's blue, the photo of the belt printed on the box in which it came is blue, and the belt is ......BLACK !

I'm sending it back, I want it exchanged with a blue one !! . Also I'm asking them to send me a belt made a lot more recently than 2015, I don't care what Gates states about shelf life. Surely they can find a blue one made in 2017 or later in their bin .

Besides, blue matches my car's color so it's just one more thing that adds to the reasoning :-)

       

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[Waylander]

Do I detect a little rage, take your pills and just breathe............

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[ds968]

A little annoyance more like it ...and many would say it's somewhat petty, but if wanting to get the specific item you order is petty, oh well so be it ..

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[Waylander]

It’s exactly what I would want, I just ordered a bit of reinforced air hose for the alternator duct and they sent me 64mm instead of 58mm


Pain in the ass had to send it back and now wait for a new bit the right size

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[ds968]

Yup, definitely a hassle sending stuff back and waiting for the replacement .. one of the reasons I have done that very rarely . Out of hundreds of items ordered online and thousands of items purchased at brick and mortar stores, I may have returned less than about ten of them in my lifetime , but as I get older it seems my tolerance for compromise ( " eh, no big deal , I can live with it " ) is getting less and less, so the grumpy old man, anal-retentive perfectionist syndrome may be kicking in.. :-)

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[Waylander]

Ah you joined the same club

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[ds968]

Response to my exchange request, from Rock Auto's supply chain manager.    Kudos to them for an incredibly fast reply and for going out of their way to check this ;

 

  Hello Dan,

Our warehouse was processing your replacement order, inspected the belt
and found it to be black.  They checked their remaining inventory of
T152RB, and all of them were black.  I called Gates, they confirmed they
changed the color of the belt, it is still the performance belt, it is
just no longer blue.  My warehouse confirmed that the belt he have does
have the correct part number "T152RB", so it is the performance belt,
but again it is black and not blue.

Would you like me to ship this belt?  Or would you rather I cancel the
reshipment and refund your PayPal account?

 

So in that it seems black is the new blue  :glare: -I'm just going to have to live with it.  There was one other source as I mentioned before that listed they have both colors, but the fact they had them by different years of the 968 is suspicious enough and   I'm venturing to guess that's old info and they probably only have black now.    Besides, their belts were priced at about $ 135 , more than double of what Rock Auto prices are.  

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[Ernie]

So are you going to return it and get a more recent production date? Mine was made in 2015 as well and Iwonder if they have any newer ones in stock?

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[ds968]

So are you going to return it and get a more recent production date? Mine was made in 2015 as well and Iwonder if they have any newer ones in stock?

 I tried, and they checked but all of the belts they have are a 2015 production date.   I also called Sparkplugs .com which have the blue one on their site, but also all black and all 2015.   Amazon has the blue in other belts from a couple of their suppliers / sources but the T152RB is shown as black . No date indicated, but if I had to bet.... :glare:​     I'm starting to think  Gates stopped making these high performance belts ( the one for our cars, the T152RB )  back in 2015..        

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[Ernie]

Hmmm, the plot thickens! If they stopped producing it, I wonder why? Lack of demand... or some other reason? Errr!

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[MCL968]

When I heard about them a while back, I spoke to a few Porsche people and they thought that it might be overkill for a street car. They predicted that the added stiffness might shorten the life of the water pump or the rollers. Plus, they said we already change our belts too often (I know, we have all heard this before) so a more durable belt is just not necessary in a street application.

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[Kim]

I have often wondered how many 968 owners have actually had a belt break that had been replaced within the recommend time/distance interval? You hear often of those that broke when they had NOT been replaced often enough, but have any ever broken within the prescribed window that was not due to some other sort of failure (ie a metal piece rubbing on it, etc)?

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[MCL968]

Completely fair question. I suspect that the number is pretty small (like the whole pinion bearing thing).

 

My mechanic told me at our last meeting that the only time he saw belts fail was when they were really old AND the driver was constantly on and off the throttle hard, like in an autocross or track situation. For normal driving, using conservative replacement guidelines and replacing the associated parts (water pump and rollers) at the proper times, the belts are pretty durable.

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