I've had a bunch that looked the same. I'm currently running one, actually. Nothing to worry about.

Thanks! I honestly saw a post somewhere where you said gates timing belts and hydraulic tensioners weren't bad so I chanced my luck on a gates kit with tensioner and waterpump. Lol

I've got 25,000 km on my gates kit , I check the belt out every other oil change and it still looks brand new

GsxEcutioner said:

Thanks! I honestly saw a post somewhere where you said gates timing belts and hydraulic tensioners weren't bad so I chanced my luck on a gates kit with tensioner and waterpump. Lol

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I've used their belts (timing and drive), tensioners, pulleys, water pumps, and even their hydraulic tensioners. I've never had a single issue with any of their parts.

My current build is using all Gates stuff, minus the hydraulic tensioner. I opted for an OEM one since that's what comes in ExtremePSI's kit:

I have that kit on my car

Only use the oem hydraulic tensioner. If the huge china stamp on the gates hydraulic tensioner isn't convincing enough then you have some balls. Pay the extra $90 and get oem tensioner

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I got an oem tensioner to use instead of the gates China one. Mines was faulty straight from the box. I contacted jnz with regards to it and they didn't even bother getting back to me. I'm not the only one has experience with faulty gates tensioners from the new as well. Some research will give you what you need.

My gates belt, that I recently installed on my mirage, also had the fibers showing on the sides too, I had the parts store employee pull another one off the shelf just to be safe, and it looked the same... I guess most of them have fibers showing like that.

I debated between the contitech belt and pulleys kit vs the gates since my motor has a contitech belt and GMB pulleys from the factory, the motor I have was a replacement from Mitsubishi due to crank walk. Uhm I'm not to worried about China made things, I am Chinese and it was probably one of my cousins that put it together . Really though, I'll chance it. The hydraulic tensioner that was on my car had some numbers like 566 or 565. Couldnt figure out if that was oem or not and the waterpump said NPW on it. The gates belt says made in USA and the pulleys are all made in China.

The numbers stamped were from an oem tensioner, I can see how doing no research on this subject before hand has made you the expert at this

The belt brand is irrelevant, the tensioner being a poor quality oem clone with a poorly cast chamber that will bleed pressure is kind of the important part not the country of origin.

Gates says made in USA, btw statistically speaking there is a higher chance my cousin made the USA belt than your cousin made the china tensioner.

GsxEcutioner said:

I debated between the contitech belt and pulleys kit vs the gates since my motor has a contitech belt and GMB pulleys from the factory, the motor I have was a replacement from Mitsubishi due to crank walk. Uhm I'm not to worried about China made things, I am Chinese and it was probably one of my cousins that put it together . Really though, I'll chance it. The hydraulic tensioner that was on my car had some numbers like 566 or 565. Couldnt figure out if that was oem or not and the waterpump said NPW on it. The gates belt says made in USA and the pulleys are all made in China.

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chrysler kid said:

The numbers stamped were from an oem tensioner, I can see how doing no research on this subject before hand has made you the expert at this

The belt brand is irrelevant, the tensioner being a poor quality oem clone with a poorly cast chamber that will bleed pressure is kind of the important part not the country of origin.

Gates says made in USA, btw statistically speaking there is a higher chance my cousin made the USA belt than your cousin made the china tensioner.

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The oem tensioner had roughly 30k on it and was leaking when I removed it. Not sure if that's a common thing either. Yea I looked online for a oem tensioner and non of the numbers I can see matched the one I had. Figured it might've been non oem unit. As far as the oem tensioner. Who makes the oem tensioner? Since contitech makes the oem belt, there's gotta be a manufacturer that sells the oem tensioner that's not branded Mitsu.

If it's leaking you have to replace it, I think it was ether Aisin or GMB japan that made the oem hydraulic tensioner for our cars, I know Aisin made the oem water pumps for Mitsubishi, the only real way to know is to find an Id marking on the part, and then see if it translates to any other brand, but fwiw Id trust aisin or gmb quality over the gates tensioner any day...or better yet oem... but oh yeah, you don't want to hear that

chrysler kid said:

The belt brand is irrelevant, the tensioner being a poor quality oem clone with a poorly cast chamber that will bleed pressure is kind of the important part not the country of origin.

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Has that been documented/proven somewhere? I've never heard of or seen that before.

I've used probably a dozen Gates tensioners over the years. Like I said, never had a single issue. I'd be willing to bet some of those failures (regardless of manufacturer) could be attributed to improper installation.

Also, some people mistake oil leaking onto the tensioner as the tensioner itself leaking.

Lots of good info here: http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/hydraulic-or-solid-timing-tensioner.496629/#post-153540558

Gates is one of the best aftermarket parts producers IMO, I'd use them for everything, EXCEPT the tensioner. We all know the OEM tensioners are good, it's cheap insurance to buy an OEM one for a part that could do a lot of damage if it fails...

There's an awesome article in the link I provided above that outlines the inner workings of a hydraulic tensioner. It's good knowledge to have when topics like this are brought up, and when considering which tensioner to buy.

Regarding failure, I've seen very few cases where a breakage wasn't the cause. Meaning, a part of the hydraulic tensioner physically broke, which 9 times out of 10 is caused by improper installation.

The hydraulic tensioner we use on our cars is a fairly simple mechanical device. A spring inside the tensioner is responsible for the belt tension, not the hydraulic system. The hydraulic system is just there to provide dampening and control slight variations caused by changing operational conditions. Mechanically, even if the tensioner has zero oil in it, it should still be able to provide tension on the belt that's adequate enough to prevent catastrophic failure under most conditions. But, if left undiscovered and unchecked in that state, a failure is almost guaranteed. And, since it's not terribly easy to pull the lower timing cover every now and then to see if things have gone awry, you almost never find out until it's too late.

Personally, I'd be confident buying an OEM tensioner, or a "Chinese" Gates unit. I've seen cases where both have failed (although never experienced one with either tensioner myself), and I don't see any added security in choosing one over the other. The only real difference is pricing and availability, which you'll find the Gates unit excelling in both categories.

It's your choice but why bother risking it. It's only the most important piece of the engine. I'd rather know I did it right than to question it later

chrysler kid said:

It's your choice but why bother risking it. It's only the most important piece of the engine. I'd rather know I did it right than to question it later

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That's my point. From my experience, there is no risk associated with picking one tensioner over another. I've used both successfully for long periods of time under various conditions, to include track time and beating the literal $hit out of the car.

Do you have any personal experience with a failed Gates unit you can share? Or, can you at least point to something outlining the sub-standard design you mentioned in your earlier post? I'm not saying it's not true, I've just never heard that said before.

I too have also used Gates and OEM tensioner's on plenty of our motors and a few other Mitsu motors and actually have never even looked to see this ( "Chinese" , "Made in China" ) that has people all up in arms about. I have had great experience with both , no failures with either.

I judge my parts on personal experience , group experience ( percentage of success over failure ) but condemning a part simply because it says "china" or "malaysia" is not my style.

Here's something to think about

The kit I bought lists the part numbers T43215 (hydraulic tensioner)
according to the sticker on the box the tensioner is made in Germany not "China" the hydraulic tensioner has 3 numbers on it that's it,
the pulleys are also made in Germany

But the water pump is made in China in this specific kit ,

The Belts are made in the USA

The hydraulic tensioner the pervious owner used on my car was still good when I removed it and looked identical to my gates tensioner

Just ordered Gates Tensioner and Gates water pump to go with my contitech timing belt install kit.

In Canada the OEM tensioner is like 3x the price I paid for the Gates. If a Gates Timing belt is okay with most, I'll risk my engine on a Gates tensioner.

ive heard good things about gates and it's what I run in my tsi and my gs

GST with PSI said:

do you have any personal experience with a failed Gates unit you can share? Or, can you at least point to something outlining the sub-standard design you mentioned in your earlier post? I'm not saying it's not true, I've just never heard that said before.

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Yes 4 tensioners in 4 years on my last dsm. Shop did the work with gates kit each time and each time everything was covered by the shop. Warranty ran out and I finally had time to do it myself so I went oem a few years ago

Good luck. Seems like none of you have really done any research on gates

http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/gates-timing-tensioner.499389/

http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/broken-timing-tensioner.499775/


http://www.dsmtuners.com/attachments/20151209_143257-jpg.287083/

chrysler kid said:

Yes 4 tensioners in 4 years on my last dsm. Shop did the work with gates kit each time and each time everything was covered by the shop. Warranty ran out and I finally had time to do it myself so I went oem a few years ago

Good luck. Seems like none of you have really done any research on gates

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Don't you think It'd be far more likely the shop you took it back to 4 separate times kept screwing it up? The odds of 4 tensioners (even China tensioners) failing in 4 years time is astronomical. BTW, none of the Gates tensioners I've ever seen look like the ones pictured in the threads below. All of mine look like the what o0GuitarKid0o described in his post. Perhaps that's the difference.

chrysler kid said:

http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/gates-timing-tensioner.499389/

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^Installation error.

chrysler kid said:

http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/broken-timing-tensioner.499775/

Proud Owner said:

My helper is underneath on the crank and I'm up top at the cams. unfortunatly he's not strong enough to turn the engine himself so I've been helping by pulling the cam at the same time. so we're BOTH turning the engine (probably from the cam more though cuz he's a wimp).

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^Lol. Can't exactly blame the tensioner for user error, can you?

As I said before, 9 times our of 10, improper installation is the reason tensioners fail. Not because they're made in China, or anything else. Oh, and if you try and rotate the motor by the cam gear while somebody simultaneously turns the crankshaft, apparently that can f*** things up as well...Who woulda' thunk?

Here's the current T43215 Gates Made in China tensioner. The part is stamped made in China on crimped ring side near the bottom of picture.