[timbits]

One of my maintance projects for this winter is to do the timing belts. I'm putting together my parts order and there appears to be two different brands available, Gates and Contitech. The Contitech belts are ~$35 more for both belts. While I'm in there I want to do the job right so is one of these brands better than the other or is it a wash?



From searching I saw one reference to Gates as the preferred brand (not sure compared to what though) and that how long the belt has been sitting on the shelf has a big effect as well, but nothing definitive if one would be better than the other.





Tim

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[flash]

contitech is NOT a belt i would ever use - every failure i have heard of has been a contitech

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[chudson]

How many manufacturers offer belts for 968?



What is brand preference (in order best to worst)?



Is the failure rate possibly because that's the most popular brand belt?



I'm riding on a C now, and that was all my supplier had at the time. It's our brand of choice in the rest of the German cars we service. Someone mentioned Dayco as a preference?



What brand do you get if you purchase the belt from Porsche?

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[flash]

at least 4, and in order of preference:



gates

dayco

goodyear

contitech



keep in mind that just because porsche might carry a particular brand of something, it does not mean that it was the original supplier, nor that it is better than anything else - it only means that it at least meets the minimum original design specs for fit and function - after the first year, auto manufacturers are allowed to change vendors, and it very often is as a result of pricing



the original designer of the system is gates



one belt was originally gates, and the other was dayco

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[timbits]

Thanks for the information. Now I'll just need to put together the order for my first round of winter maintenance (got a few things on the list along with the belts).

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[chudson]

Interesting



I don't want any Gates employees / engineers slamming me here (because I know they are better now), but in the '80s we stepped over Gates belts because they stretched like rubber bands. Have thrown many a Gates V belt in the trash that didn't have 30K on them and the factory belts would run darn near 100K. They may have been great on your domestic, but back then on an import they were junk!



I won't debate the Flash man, but really hard to believe with all the manufacturer loyality that existed in the '80s Porsche picked Gates to design this system. Worth mentioning is that the overall lack of dependability (of this design) supports my experience with their product of that day. Any Asian car in the '90s would easily run 90K on its belt, and every other popular brand Euro would do 50K or more.



Not trying to start a fight, but I was "in the trenches" at the time.

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[flash]

no worries - the problem you speak of is exactly the reason the contis seem to be junk now



i'm not sure what problems you were having, but i had the opposite experience, which is why i landed on gates in the first place, and became a big fan in the late 80s when i had my shop



when i found out that the original design was gates, i was happy - then when i found out how many contis were failing, and have seen enough of them personally, the decision was made easy enough



the design of the system is actually very dependable, as long as you don't choose a belt that does not heat cycle well, like the current conti



it is also worth mentioning that the manual says to retension the balance belt every 15k or every year, whichever is first - that almost never gets done, and is a primary contributing factor to the failures



i see many cars that have belts on them that "look" fine - in reality the rubber has gone hard, and does not show wear, but also does not track well



a belt should NOT last 100k, and in 30 years of doing this, i've never seen one actually do it - sure, it might still be "intact", but that does not mean that it "lasted" - it all depends on the capacity for resisting friction and slippage



all things being equal, a belt should last a minimum of 3 years and will normally last a maximum of 5 years - for mileage, it would be between 30k and 50k miles - they are designed to wear - that is actually a desirable condition - if they didn't, the friction would heat the rubber, which would then cool and harden, and result in a loss of traction - it's kind of like brake pads - something has to wear, and it had better not be the pulleys - rubber contracts when it is heated, and some belts do not like that



v-belts are the worst - they have the least amount of surface area in contact, and so consequently need more tension to maintain traction - import cars often have a lot of components on one belt, which adds a lot of requirement for tension - that is not a good idea for a v-belt - this is why most imports switched to the serpentine design, and gained more contact area



use what you want, but every single failure i've heard of was a conti, including mine on a car that was always garaged, never subjected to cold or wet, and only had less than 25k on the belt when it shredded

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[chudson]

Trust me, I always err on the side of caution amd listen to the voice of experience. If Conti is the red headed step child then away it goes. When the day comes that I see the inside of my cylinders I want it to be for the maintenance head gasket and not for bent valves!

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[flash]

no worries - i am going entirely on what i have seen and heard too - i would not have thought that conti would be a problem - frankly, until this car, i pretty much felt that while there were obviously better belts than others, that a belt is a belt is a belt - i never gave them much thought and i never had one fail - but this car apparently has a problem - after watching and hearing about 7 years of reports of failures, and all of them being conti, i can draw 2 conclusions:



1. more people run conti than the others

2. conti has a higher failure rate



number 1 is likely due to the fact that porsche has been carrying conti for the last few years, and most people think that whatever they use must be the best, and really doesn't factor in



number 2 is the one that i have paid attention to, as like you, i want to be changing things for maintenance and not repair



so, while i would hesitate to call it the red headed step child, i will err on the side of caution myself, and stick with what the manufacturer originally specced, and not what the bean counters later replaced it with



something to ask would be "is is mere coincidence that we only started hearing about belt failures after the switch to conti?"

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[chudson]

Agree on bean counters. They have one concern - bottom line



They don't have to replace or pay for bent valves. In fact, the more that get bent, the better the bottom line!



I knew the automotive world was in trouble when one of the best known parts manufacturers in the business (who once sold ONLY what they produced) started re-packaging junk generic products so they could compete in the marketplace. Once one compromises the quality of ones work or product, my respect is greatly dimished.

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[flash]

yeah - i remember what happened to TRW and MOOG



i did have one conversation with a guy who should know, and he said there was a compound in the conti that did not lend itself well to longevity, and there was a different compound in the gates that did



of course, he has a connection to gates, so that could be biased

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[Cloud9...68]

Based on all the available info, I've been using Gates on my recent belt changes as well. In fact, where there is a choice, I go with Gates on all my cars' belts. It doesn't hurt that they don't cost any more than any other brand, too.



Still, I'm curious what RS Barns' experience has been - since they see a steady stream of more of these cars than just about anyone, do they see also see a high failure rate with Conti belts?

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[flash]

i don't think any of them have a "high" rate of failure - it's just that you only need one to ruin your day

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[Cloud9...68]

lol - yes, very true.

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[flash]

changed on schedule, and not revved too hard or driven in temperature extremes, the conti is probably just fine - just as would be pretty much any belt - that's the nature of anything that meets the specs - the problems wouldn't likely occur until you start to reach the edge of the envelope - unfortunately (or fortunately) many of us push that envelope, so we tend to be more cautious if we want things to stay intact, and i'm just not inclined to take any chances



it's not like we hear about a bunch of problems, and they always seem to involve exceeding the lifespan of the belt, whether it is merely the age limit (3 years) or the mileage limit (45k) - it may be pure coincidence that we have discovered the limits to be a lot more firm than previously thought - it may be that now people are using the conti more and it has more strict limits - who knows? i am just not going to risk it figuring it out

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[ds968]

Spoke to quite a few people in the auto repair business, they ALL seem to think Dayco is even better than Gates, but good luck finding the Dayco belt for the 968 ( even though it was the OEM for many years ). My failed belt happened to be a Gates one BUT that was the result of an excessive number of years I had it on the car ( more than double the prescribed maximum time ) coupled with the fact that I always drive the car no lower than 4k rpm and very often.. and I mean very often..between the 6k to 7k rpm range. Then, the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back was subjecting that nearly seven year old and high stress driven belt to a temperature swing of 105+ degrees one day, to 40 degrees at night, back to 104 degrees the next day and once again at around 6k rpm...it gave up <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/mad.gif" class="smilie" alt="" /> .. so can't really blame it on Gates quality, can I ? <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/rolleyes.gif" class="smilie" alt="" /> .



My new belt : still Gates. <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/smile.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />



Btw, the OE timing belt on our Nissan is Dayco. The FIRST replacement was at 130,000 miles and after more than 10 + years ! I inspected the old belt afterward and not only did it look new, but it felt new; reversing and bending in multiple spots it did not show the slightest trace of any cracking, not even hairline marks. The rubber felt as flexible as any belt off the store shelf. The Nissan shop claims they occasionally see first changes at 200,000 miles, and said they NEVER seen nor heard of a timing belt failure in the 30 years they have been in the service business. Not sure if all Nissans have Dayco, but the majority pre-2000 ones did. Of course, except the Nissan sport cars, not many get driven like we do our Porsches.



Odd thing : I think Dayco is a U.S. manufacturer - how in the world does a German car maker and/or a Japanese car maker end up with a U.S. OE product, when plenty of alternatives were available both Europe and in Asia, respectively .. <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/unsure.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />

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[Ceenit]

I recently had my BMW belts done. I opted for the Dayco. They were the most expensive off the shelf I could find (other than those from BMW that were a generic OEM). Dayco had the best warranty and looked better made than any of the others I checked out (Conti/Gates). If Dayco makes one for the 968, that's what I'll be going with.

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[Peter]

Here are all three brands of balance belts sold on the same website: http://www.partsgeek.com/catalog/1992/po..._belt.html.

Intersting, Dayco is the least expensive one.

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[flash]

link broken



anyway, price doesn't always equate to quality - a while back the gates was less than the conti by a fair margin - belt prices change a lot, based on production and sales quantities

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[banditsc]

[quote name='flash' timestamp='1293723807' post='103089']

link broken

[/quote]

Link fixed: http://www.partsgeek.com/catalog/1992/po..._belt.html

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