Timing Belt Kit To Use Now That Gates Is Made In China

I'm at the point where I need to change out the timing belt. Gates used to be the go-to kit but there are a bunch of negative reviews that the kit has changed to Chinese parts and some say the tensioner makes disturbing noises.

I did a bunch of searching to see if there is another recommended kit but I couldn't find it if it's already been covered.

Do I go OEM? Here is my parts list for that but I'm missing the 4th idler pulley that the kits say they include. I couldn't see where it is in the online parts diagrams.

-OEM Belt 13028AA240 $112
-OEM Tensioner 13033AA042 $114
-OEM Idler, Left Upper 13085AA080 $65
-OEM Idler, Left Lower 13073AA230 $57
-OEM Idler, Right 13073AA142 $57
-OEM Idler, ?????

That comes to $405 which is a far cry from the GATES TCK328N kit at $175 or even the GATES TCK328RB blue kit for $275. However much better than a failure in the end.

Pricing is from subaruonlineparts.com and rockauto.com
Opinions?

Find the Asin kit

I looked on http://partcat.com/aisin and did not find a kit for the 2010 turbocharged engine. They list the BTF-500 tensioner for the EJ255 engine.

I could possibly get the gates kit for the idlers and ditch the tensioner. Going with the Aisin part.

I bought a gates kit and the only thing made in china was the water pump

Was that recently? I've read that things changed at some point in 2016

From April

Aisin or Continental make really good kits.

If you want to use OEM quality components and still save some money over dealership costs, you might want to look at the Aisin kits.

In this post, #27 the poster has pictures of all the components.

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthrea....html?t=258616

Originally Posted by Wild Bill

I'm at the point where I need to change out the timing belt. Gates used to be the go-to kit but there are a bunch of negative reviews that the kit has changed to Chinese parts and some say the tensioner makes disturbing noises.

I did a bunch of searching to see if there is another recommended kit but I couldn't find it if it's already been covered.

Do I go OEM? Here is my parts list for that but I'm missing the 4th idler pulley that the kits say they include. I couldn't see where it is in the online parts diagrams.

-OEM Belt 13028AA240 $112
-OEM Tensioner 13033AA042 $114
-OEM Idler, Left Upper 13085AA080 $65
-OEM Idler, Left Lower 13073AA230 $57
-OEM Idler, Right 13073AA142 $57
-OEM Idler, ?????

That comes to $405 which is a far cry from the GATES TCK328N kit at $175 or even the GATES TCK328RB blue kit for $275. However much better than a failure in the end.

Pricing is from subaruonlineparts.com and rockauto.com
Opinions?

Whatever kit you decide on, the 2010-12 Legacy Gt has a water pump that is not compatible with any other models. I ended up buying a Continental kit, figuring out the pump was a no go and ordering a Subaru pump. Still waiting on the pump

Originally Posted by Wild Bill

I could possibly get the gates kit for the idlers and ditch the tensioner.

That's what I did.

Originally Posted by jmaddocks

That's what I did.

Same here. The continental kits have some quality parts, just the wrong WP. But the OEM WP is the only route to go because the obvious (it's oem) and it comes with the good gasket not the paper gaskets all aftermarket pumps come with.

So I ordered the gates timing belt kit and their accessory belt. Ordered an OEM tensioner, water pump, and thermostat.

You may get Chinese idler(s) in your Gates kit. That happened to me and I felt compelled to spend an extra $55 at the Subaru dealer parts counter for an OEM idler.

I do not want cheap Chinese parts to do a timing belt service on my interference engine. Ancient Chinese saying: "Your engine may have short life." Avoid Gates until they go back to doing things right! Don't encourage this kind of crap.

I recently bought the Gates timing kit w/water pump from another member on here, price was to good to pass up. Luckily to my surprise, everything was made in Japan, so no need to swap out any of the pulleys.

Yes, there are several issues with the newer Gates (Chinese kits) where the pulleys would only last 20k miles.

Since you order the Gates timing kit, make sure you look at each pulley from where it's made. If it's made in China, send it back for a refund. This is something you don't want to go cheap on, because if the pulley fails and the belt skips, you'll be looking for a new shortblock or valves.

I used this ACDelco kit and the car hasn't exploded yet. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Haven't heard any members using the ACDelco kit, but the brand is reliable. You can be our 1st to keep us updated on this kit.

Do you know where all the pulleys where made from? This would be good info for the rest of the members.