Failure
Timing belts must be replaced at the manufacturer's recommended distance and/or time periods. Failure to replace the belt can result in complete breakdown or catastrophic engine failure, especially in interference engines. The owner's manual maintenance schedule is the source of timing belt replacement intervals, typically every 100,000 to 150,000 kilometres. It is common to replace the timing belt tensioner at the same time as the belt is replaced.
The usual failure modes of timing belts are either stripped teeth (which leaves a smooth section of belt where the drive cog will slip) or delamination and unraveling of the fiber cores. Breakage of the belt, because of the nature of the high tensile fibers, is uncommon. Correct belt tension is critical - too loose and the belt will whip, too tight and it will whine and put excess strain on the bearings of the cogs. In either case belt life will be drastically shortened. Aside from the belt itself, also common is a failure of the tensioner, and/or the various gear and idler bearings, causing the belt to derail.
Read more about this topic: Timing Belt
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“Dear George: Remember no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings! Love, Clarence”
—Frances Goodrich (1891–1984)
“I am dead against art’s being self-expression. I see an inherent failure in any story which fails to detach itself from the author—detach itself in the sense that a well-blown soap-bubble detaches itself from the bowl of the blower’s pipe and spherically takes off into the air as a new, whole, pure, iridescent world. Whereas the ill-blown bubble, as children know, timidly adheres to the bowl’s lip, then either bursts or sinks flatly back again.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection’s failure to substitute misrule for bad government.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)