NOS (new old stock) Timing Belts

[sean75]

Originally Posted by xsport

Is that on the belts themselves sean, or on the packaging ..

It’s the date that is on the label on the box that the belts were in. The boxes are sealed closed with tamper proof seals , so it’s unlikely though not impossible, that the date on the belts differs. If anyone is in the business of opening original packaging and replacing the contents with older parts, then there is only one word for that : fraud.

[Briodyjl01]

I have just gone back through my invoices and I bought my kit in August 2022. When you look at the website today there is a disclaimer

“Please be advised. The main timing belt in this kit is New/Old stock and has a date code of 2012 Manufacture. It has however been dry stored in a temperature controlled environment and we have never seen any premature degradation of the item.

2 Year Warranty on this kit.”

If any of you are tech savvy you will know there’s a website called web archive. This lets you go back on old versions of websites to view them. You can even view mg rovers website!

Having a Quick Look back you can see in December 23 and April 23 the disclaimer was NOT there.

I can understand changing the website for new customers. But advising old existing customers ?

Wonder how we all stand here.









Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Matt_75]

Originally Posted by dave lincs

I need to check the one I fitted a couple of months ago, Has anyone been in touch with the supplier yet? Had a brief chat yesterday with my friend who is a solicitor he said firstly as the supplier what they would like to do to rectify the issue then go from there I also suspect very old tensioner are being used as they seem to fail in a short time

Dave

I've emailed them and this is what they said

"My apologies for this - we weren't aware there was a date code on the belt itself, and have been supplying these on the basis that the shelf life (as advised to us previously) is 10 years, and that the belts were manufactured in 2018 as indicated on the packaging (the 2018 date was on all belt packaging supplied as part of this batch, which we've stocked for quite some time now).
It's a bit of a shock to learn they're date coded from 2012 - I'm currently attempting to get in touch with our supplier to raise this with them and see if they have any newer belts in stock.

With regards to the striping on the belt, that's perfectly normal and I have the same on a K Series belt dated 2021 - it's just a result of the friction with the tensioner, idler and waterpump.
I would only be concerned if cracks appeared in the belt; this would show it was drying out and required urgent replacement.

I honestly wouldn't worry in the short term; we sell a lot of these kits and we've not had a single failure or report of cracking / delamination to date.
We're still in the early stages of looking into this, and I'm happy to keep you updated with progress - we don't currently have alternative stock to replace your 2012-coded belts with but once we do we'll happily swap them for you.
This isn't an issue we've been aware of for long, but I'm currently looking into several avenues to stock newer belts."

I'm not sure about the shelf life part, Dayco's guidance is 5 years and the time based service schedule (on the car) is 6 years. Granted that when on the car, the belt is subjected to more environmental factors plus tension even when not running.

I've installed it as part of a much bigger job to resurrect a poorly car by swapping in a replacement engine. I do think that imminent failure is unlikely but I really wanted a "fit and forget" (for 6 years) solution after the amount of work and money that's gone into it and this will weigh too heavily on my mind. The thought of replacing it in the short term is depressing but is what must be done for me personally

[dave lincs]

Well done to Josh and Matt on this so far I see it this way if they have supplied belts over 10 years old they are not fit for purpose and they should either compensate the people who have fitted these or arrange for them to be replaced at there cost as some of us will have paid a lot of money to have had these fitted ?

[Yorkshire GOC]

Does this mean that traders such as Lates are using the same source for the belts -anybody know ?

[vitesse]

Like others, I'm dismayed (and rather annoyed) to find the belts supplied by DMGRS in Nov last year and indeed this week both have a date stamp of year 12.

I've seen no disclaimer, and although I can source belts locally in Sweden, one of the reasons I've chosen DMGRS is because I thought that any bought from them would, due to volume, have a much better shelf-life than any found here.

Sorry, I don't accept any arguments of no premature failures etc. Who wants to go to the supermarket and buy a product long after the manufacturer recommended best before date? Are they even allowed to sell expired products?

I've asked Mat for either replacements with an acceptable date stamp or a refund.

Hopeful

[Teflon]

Originally Posted by Yorkshire GOC

Does this mean that traders such as Lates are using the same source for the belts -anybody know ?

I believe Lates prefers to use belts from Gates from what I can recall. In any case though, I'm pretty sure he would have picked up any date discrepancies at the time of fitting. Both he and Pete are pretty thorough in their work.

Cliff

[daveo138]

Originally Posted by xsport

I did question the dates on the gates belt before buying , and as a gates main supplier they told me that the rotation of stock was pretty fast and was not a worry of old stock still on the shelf.

I can’t imagine there’s that much demand for KV6 belts, unless they fit other engines, so there can’t be that much rotation.

I’ve just checked the belt I bought for my other half’s 25 last year. It’s dated 2022, although it may well be out of date by the time I get around to fitting it

Hopefully this issue can be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.

[xsport]

Agreed ,were not in ford escort territory here ! There are a lot of KV6 engines out there .Used in other cars too. You only have to look at the turnover already on this website. As the belt date from gates was well within spec ,i was happy with that, on the ones i fitted. At least the belts had not been on the shelf for long .. thats the point. ...

[xsport]

60.000 miles . , or 4 yrs , which ever comes first .. or 90.000.miles,or 6 years ? Is that the correct MGROVER service advice ? Its a good job mgrover fitted new belts then !! Some of the cars ran around for years and years before change , so to start with a 2012 @ 12 years old date and then add the years on ,is moving into dangerous territory me thinks ....