12 year old timing belt

Heard some knocking on a very cold start up two days ago at idle. After the car started to warm up the knocking disappeared. I'm thinking the tensioner is the cause. I logged the car, DAM is at 1.0 and it's not pulling timing at all (stage 2, tuning alliance tune). The car only has 82k miles on it, but it's an 06. Time to replace the belt and tensioner?

I'm not expert, but given my friend is literally 100k more than you on the original timing gear I'm thinking keep on trucking and see what happens.

OP, it could be your crank position sensor getting gunked up or starting to fail. You may want to check on it and clean it off (on the block under the alternator IIRC).

 

I'm not expert, but given my friend is literally 100k more than you on the original timing gear I'm thinking keep on trucking and see what happens.

 

Great advice! Your friend sounds like a not-expert, too.

I'm not an expert either but I know what is going to happen, Donny's friend and you may be opening wallets quite soon.

Definitely not going with the "do nothing recommendation."

 

The car had audible rod knock sound when I started it when it was really cold. If a crankshaft position sensor went bad wouldn't a CEL happen? Haven't considered this option before.

 

It's cold as hell out today. I will try and take a video if it does it again. It sounded like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i66waQo-QKA. It was loud as hell.

Definitely not going with the "do nothing recommendation."

 

The car had audible rod knock sound when I started it when it was really cold. If a crankshaft position sensor went bad wouldn't a CEL happen? Haven't considered this option before.

 

It's cold as hell out today. I will try and take a video if it does it again. It sounded like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i66waQo-QKA. It was loud as hell.

 

I posted a video on YouTube of a defective tensioner on my 2006 Outback XT

 

 

The noise decreases as the engine warms up. I had to swap out that garbage Gates tensioner with an NTN and the knocking is gone.

 

My car had 62k miles on it at the time and was 131 months old - the original timing belt looked nearly brand new when I removed it. Not so sure about the pulleys - the slight chirping on startup went away. The original tensioner was fine but if yours is knocking, replace it (with the belt and pulleys while you're in there).

Sounds about right. Can't tell without hearing you give it some gas.

 

No CEL, and AP is not detecting any knock. So I'm at a loss as to what else it was/could be.

 

Yeah I'll spring for a full timing belt replacement if I'm going to be in there. I'll do the water pump etc, pulleys and tensioner.

Your timing belt is 3-4 years past the manufacturer's recommended replacement date. Do it yesterday, and consider an alternative to the Gates tensioner. I've had the same noise GoldmemberXT demoed, with a couple of brand new Gates tensioners. In both cases, the noise went away after 30-90 minutes of running and never returned, so I'm on the fence as to whether I'd use Gates.

I would not use a Gates kit unless they made some improvements

 

Get a timing belt kit from the auto parts store. I used a Dayco kit years ago. It worked fine.

Dealer quoted me $800 for parts (including pulleys and water pump). Seems pretty high. I'll check out dayco. I always prefer OEM for stuff like this though.

Dealer quoted me $800 for parts (including pulleys and water pump). Seems pretty high. Any other places I can go for this?

 

$800 with WP & labor seems surprisingly low for a dealer. But you should definitely find out who the good local Subaru shops are.

 

There's a Subaru dealer within walking distance of my house, and I won't go there cause their techs don't know their @$$es from a hole in the ground. If I had to go in for a recall, I'd go across town.

Point is, base your selection of shops on informed reviews, not on price.

 

P.S. Doing a timing belt is fun and not too hard if you have a garage, a weekend, and are willing to spend about as much on the proper tools as you'd spend on labor.

$800 with WP (no labor), that's just for parts.

 

I was planning on doing it myself.

I went with all OEM parts when I did my timing service on my 08 LGT.B just a few months ago. Yes it was expensive but its all OEM and I can trust it for 100k miles without worry. My previous timing kit was gates and the water pump failed after 32k miles FYI.

 

If you piece it all together online on amazon from the seller "Subaru Superstore" thats the best pricing I could find at the time (When you add it all in your cart the shipping price gets lowered down at the end). You can get all the parts needed for about $550 if you are really looking for the best deals. I made a spreadsheet as I priced everything out from different sources. The local dealer wanted 700 for everything and swore up and down I was getting the best possible pricing.... There's probably cheaper ways to go and still get a reliable set of parts, but I'm too OCD these days and that's where I choose to spend my money.

$800 with WP (no labor), that's just for parts.

 

I was planning on doing it myself.

 

Sorry, didn't read carefully. Definitely don't pay dealership prices for those parts.

 

The camshaft locking tool is a must, Sealey has one for $25. On my first one of these jobs, years ago when decent versions cost a bunch, I did the job with a cheap Lisle universal tool. I lived to tell the tale, but man, did I regret it.

 

Everybody has an opinion on how to loosen/tighten the crank bolt. My 2 bits is, there's only one "best" way - the Company 23 tool is the best $60 you'll ever spend.

Has anyone used the Company 23 timing belt guide?

http://www.company23.com/products/subaruparts/520

The camshaft locking tool is a must, Sealey has one for $25. On my first one of these jobs, years ago when decent versions cost a bunch, I did the job with a cheap Lisle universal tool. I lived to tell the tale, but man, did I regret it.

 

Everybody has an opinion on how to loosen/tighten the crank bolt. My 2 bits is, there's only one "best" way - the Company 23 tool is the best $60 you'll ever spend.

 

Reasonable cam lock tool I use. It had free shipping when I bought it. Looks like that is no longer the case. Still cheaper than the company 23 version

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00U3ABSH6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I went with gates kit and oem water pump off amazon and got parts for around $350....

Dealer quoted me $1,000 all parts and labor including water pump and all idlers.

 

Mrs. Spif's car does the same if it sits for a while. I assumed it was a collapsed lifter since it goes away after oil flows and temp rises a little. Only ticks for a few seconds when it happens.

http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=4007478&cc=1432596&jsn=412

 

Thinking about going this route. Mitsuboshi makes our OEM serpentine belts, and Aisin makes a lot of the OEM water pumps for Toyota. Only $250. I'll let you guys know how it goes unless someone points at Aisin as non-reputable or has known failures.

 

Also thanks everyone for your help. These forums are awesome and I'm glad to see this community is still going strong.

The kit looks good, make sure none of the parts are made in China, NTN/NSK are OEM,

pretty sure the OEM WP I installed was Aisin. The tensioner is extremely important too!

Yeah I'm thinking the tensioner is what's failing on my car more so than the belt itself. Obviously it would be dumb to replace the tensioner with a new a new one and put the old belt back on. Hoping this quiets my engine bay down a bit on those cold starts. It's needed maintenance at the very least as rubber tends to degrade over time.

 

Time to start scouring threads on how to DIY this. I saw Max's and the parts about measuring clearances concerned me a bit. I definitely don't have the tools to check clearances. Getting the bolts and the old belt off should be no problem. I'll see if I have time to fumble through it this weekend.

I definitely don't have the tools to check clearances.

 

A set of feeler gauges is a couple of bucks at the auto parts store. Plus some kits (the Gates I know, probably others) come with a feeler gauge specific to the crank sprocket.

That sounds more like piston slap, which Subarus are fairly Notorious for. Mine picked it up after I started using Rotela T6 in the moderate VA climate. Needless to say I've switched back to 5w30 and it will not slap if I run the car daily, but if it sits for couple days the piston slap returns.

 

Gates seems to be including the blue NSK tensioner in their kits again, but the gear by the WP is still a made in china one. Last timing belt I did this summer for a friend, we got an NSK gear and gates kit and OEM water pump.

 

My oem blue nsk tensioner went out at 92k on my 3 year old outback, which is ridiculous, I would not trust oem ones to even 120k miles.

Good info Covert, on my tuner's (Mike/Bryan at http://www.tuningalliance.com) recommendation I'm changing to Motul 5w-30 from Rotella. We'll see if that sorts out the piston slap.

 

I still don't see the timing belt change as a waste though as everything I've read indicates that the belt can fail due to age just as much as mileage.

You really should have changed that belt, idlers and water pump months ago .