My car has 151k and i was considering doing a timing belt because my car is a 95 and im overdue in milage and years. They say every 100k or 7 years. What bothers me is there is a couple bolts missing off the bottom cover and its cracked open a tiny bit on the one side. .. So im wondering if it was ever done before and the guy didnt put the cover back on right. Why else would it be missing 2 bolts and kinda not on the whole way. Is there anyway to check it. Cause my dealership said they want 550 $ to do a new one. Kinda expensive. Would suck to do it and not need it

 

You can take off the cover to see if you have a honda timing belt installed. If it is an aftermarket belt, then it had to be changed at some point.

Some belts will have some sort of code or date stamped on the outside. This will tell you the year the belt was manufactured. I am not sure if the Honda timing belts have this feature. I think the serpentine belts do.

 

$550 is not a horrible price for a dealer to do the work

If your timing belt breaks you will be looking at much more than $550 to repair it.

 

I think maby i should just get the dealership to do it. I think their the most trust worthy. Idk thou i never took my car to a garage before i always do my own work but this project is a bit much for my comfortability. How urgent should this be done? I know im over due but idk what their life span really is

 

well most of the time they break between 150k - 200k miles

I would say it is urgent to get it changed asap.

If it breaks your pistons will hit the valves and cause a lot of damage to your motor.

 

Okay well i have an appointment friday to take it but idk if ill have the money. Do u think the dealership will work with me? Or do they charge to keep it there till i get the money? it still makes me nervous im hoping it will be okay a couple more days till then

 

I would suggest asking the dealer about payment. Usually repairs are expected to be payed in full. I'm sure you could keep driving on it, the problem is once you start thinking about it you assume its going to snap next time you start the car. You never really know when they are going to fail a belt that looks fine could fail the next day.

Bolts come loose, those bolts are holding a plastic cover on so they can not be exactly tightened down that much. Ive found missing bolts on my car before (oil pan) they just loosened on their own. If you have some mechanical aptitude you could pull the cover off and look and see if its a honda belt if its not its been replaced, if it is see if theres a date on it. I dont recall if theres dates on the belts.

 

Your right once its on my mind it drives me crazy.....To pull the top cover do i need to pull anything to get to it? or are all the bolts accessable? I consider muself a decent mechanic ive done all my own work. This will be the first time my car has seen a garage since i got it. It makes me nervous cause last time i took it somewhere to get it check afyer i bought it. The mechanic put 2 huge dents in the hood from slamming it shut cause my latch sticks alittle and he managed to lock my keys in the car with the alarm going off for hours till i got there..... What is everyonea opinion on the honda dealerships mechanics? Ive never took anything to a dealership but i herd honda has some good mechanic. I guess cause they need to keep their reputation and they warrenty everthing

 

The alternator harness is clipped into the upper cover along with 2 10mm bolts and then it slides right out. I was in the same boat as you the other day. I bought a 96 accord lx with 240k miles and it had the Honda OEM belts on it. Never having done a timing belt before, I tackled it. I thought to myself, if I **** this up, im not completely screwed seeing that I can get a used engine with 140k miles for 250$. So I went ahead and did the timing belt, balance shafy belt, water pump, serpentine belts, brake pads, rotors, and valve cover gasket all in one day. I did run into a few issues, but it was simply my lack of knowledge. I say tackle the job and learn something new, I try to everyday!

Good luck, and if you have any question, feel free to ask. If you do decide to do this job, you will need a crank pulley tool, which no one around town seems to have. So me being a Amazon Prime member, I get $3.99 overnight shipping on eligible items. This tool happened to be one of them, so for 20$ shipped to me the next day, I had a perfect working tool.

 

I did my timing belt myself, but if I had to have it done Id go to a dealership before a local mechanic. Dealerships (Honda) do a LOT of timing belts its routine for them a local shop would not have near the volume on this type of repair. Id suggest a google of your dealership make sure there are not to many complaints about them online and take it there. Timing belts are tricky to change, it took me two weekends to do mine about 15 hours total, Im sure a mechanic would have had a field day watching me. Fortunately I didnt need the car at the time otherwise I would not have attempted it.