If true that’s a hecka bad design to rely on a specific ingredient to prevent failure.
Agreed. This is all quite speculative of me, I'm just going by what I've seen looking around the internet. It's a bad design altogether. I remember when Ford released these engines they were very excitedly showing everyone these wet-belts and saying they were 'fit for the life of the engine'. I guess a few million people driving around with these belts is a far better test than anything they can do during development!