ITM Timing Belts.

[jusmx141]

My buddy talondave was recently in need of a timing belt for his daily driver 1G Laser AWD, so I willingly donated a brand new ITM belt that I recently picked up as part of a complete timing belt kit for my FWD. I bought the kit with intention of using the pulleys on my engine in conjunction with a Power Enterprise timing belt.

My first impression of the ITM belt was that it appeared to be of OEM quality. As Dave would soon find out, this is not the case.

With no more than 300 miles and one week of driving on it, here's how the ITM belt held up:

[twicks69]

Justin, this should be a sticky so other people don't find out the hard way.

Thanks for the heads up!

[jusmx141]

No problem, Tim.

I'm sure nobody's attempting to use these belts on their high-performance cars, but we discovered that even on Dave's daily driver this belt couldn't surpass the 300-mile mark.

I'm not trying to bash ITM; perhaps this was just part of a bad batch of belts....clearly there was an issue with the bonding of the cog layer to the reinforced backing.

I also can't speak for companies like Dayco and Gates, even ContiTech which I believe possibly manufactures the OEM Mitsu belts. Hell I removed a Napa belt from my FWD car when I disassembled the engine which was on the car for so long you could barely read the Napa print, and the belt's rubber was starting to harden....so obviously that was a quality product.

Hopefully anyone considering using an ITM belt on their engine will come on this site and search before they install. Luckily when Dave's engine jumped time and the car shut off he was idling at a stoplight and there was no valve damage!