A little friendly advice on timing belts and such

[Dino]

I have an 04 touring PT with 85k on it, so I'm under the mileage for a change of belt but over the amount of years. So since I'm taking a trip from NY to Fla in a few weeks I thought it was better safe then sorry, so I had it done today along with the other belts, water pump, etc. Just a month ago my friend had her belt in her 07 PT with 73k let go, she was lucky the valves weren't bent. But some people aren't lucky, my mechanic told me he had two over the last couple of months that had the belt break and bent the valves. It can add a lot to the cost of the repair, in some cases way more than double the cost. So I highly advise you owners of PT's even if your under miles but over years to get it done. I'm really good to my car, I don't beat on it at all and my belt had some serious dry rot, it wasn't coming apart but it looked it's age. So I'm glad I got this done before my trip.

A little advice to safe some money also, buy all your own stuff and bring it to a trusted mechanic. I bought all the supplies at rockauto.com, and the hoat antifreeze from Granger. Doing this my bill was seven hours labor, so 595.00 plus the cost of my parts. The dealer wanted 1300 and that wasn't installing the other belts or hoses or the oil sender unit I had the mechanic put in also.

So my old girl is good to go another 85k, with the right maintenance these PT's will just keep going .

[Dino]

Everything came out excellent on the job so I'd like to give a shout out to
Ricky and Luis auto-tech services, 570 Hicksville Rd, Seaford NY 516-826-2343.
Been using Ricky as my mechanic for over 20 years and has never did me wrong. Anybody in the area needs this or anything else done I highly recommend Ricky. I was going to use the dealer for the timing belt this time but too big a difference in price and the dealer didn't seem to want my business all that much.

[Dino]

Kind of funny, so my ex mom in law has a 95 Ford escort in really good shape, original owner and it only has 87k on it and gets great gas mileage. So I ask her on the way to pick up my PT after getting the timing belt done, did she ever get hers done, and I get the deer in the headlight look and knew the answer was no. Two days later she goes to start it and the belt broke. So it's in the shop now and somehow she thinks it's my fault "lol" well not really but the timing sucks.