"Hank" <jdoe@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8PmdnTmbTOXBsjDcRVn-2A@rogers.com...
> Why is Honda still using a timing belt, instead of a timing chain?
> Why would they not switch to a chain and eliminate this high cost
> maintenance item?
>
Timing chains are also high cost maintenance items. They may not break quite
as often as timing belts do, but they can jump at even lower mileage than
the replacement interval for timing belts.

The normal failure mode for a chain is wear of the link pivot areas so the
chain appears to stretch. Bicycle chains often "stretch" so much they are an
entire link longer than a new one. I had a 1984 Dodge 600 (like a LeBaron)
with a Mitsubishi power train, and I got rid of it at 90K miles because the
timing chain had developed enough slack that it was rubbing on the timing
chain cover in spite of the snubber being at the end of its travel. The
first step in changing the timing chain: remove engine. Toyota engines in
the 80s were notorious for chewing holes in the timing chain covers, and my
#2 son and I spent most of a week changing the timing chain in his '82
Corolla... about a month before it threw a rod (sob).

Mike