Hey guys, i'm thinking of buying all gates timing belts and pulleys for my IX.

Can some of you with high mileage on these gates components chime in on their experience.

In particular, i'm concerned about any gates belt or tensioner failures.

 

All the 4g63 professionals i have ever talked to have said to stick with OEM. The timing belt and associated maintenance items are not something to try and save a buck on.

 

Thats right op why you need gates belt?

 

gates belts are great as well as their water pumps, man come to think of it I think I didn their tensioner too and I haven't had any problems

 

how many miles do you have with yours gates components?

 

I like the Gates products as well. I believe Gates Racing belts meet/exceed OEM quality. I've never heard of an occasion where a Gates belt failed through proper installation and use; I've heard of lots of occasions where ANY belt has failed due to neglect, negligence, and poor maintenance.

 

I have had the gates belts for 30k so far. Works great. Little piece of mind, Gates provides belts for many car manufacturers. Proper installation is key. If installed wrong then any belt is gonna fall apart.

 

Absolutely, my question regarding the reliability of gates components assumes the installation was performed properly. With 20+ years of dsm experience I would hope I know how to install a timing belt

That's great that you've gone 30k miles on gates belts. That eases my mind if I choose to use gates belts. Did you also use the gates tensioner?

I forgot to ask, is that the standard gates belts or the racing belts?

 

I also thought I read somewhere that John Bradley uses and/or encourages the use of gates components. Anyone know?

Do power levels play into the reliability of belts, or is it simply strength of the valve train components, such as the springs and cams?

 

Power shouldn't be a factor from what I've seen. But if I had invested a large amount of money on my car, I wouldn't hesitate to perform regular timing belt changes every 10-20k miles or so, and this is just being paranoid about it. They should last longer no matter what.

 

I have Gates standard belts on my DSM and my Evo9 (for 5k miles) with no problems. Also you can get them for a reasonable price from rock auto.

 

Gates isn't like an eBay brand where there is no reputation or reviews of quality concerns. I saw your posts in the other sticky timing belt thread and from the looks of it. The OP took reputation/minimum of oem quality into his recommendation. There wee several posts of no issues and another few posts with decent mileage with no issues. I'd be more weary if there were a few posts with bad reviews but there was none. I'll be going that route next timing belt change.