If a wet belt was easy to replace like a normal timing belt then maybe. But these wet belt engines only line the manufacturers pockets. It’s a role of the dice that I’ll never take. Owners are stunned at the cost of replacing a wet belt. Do your research.
Wet belt engines
- Thread starter Huskyguy68
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JTK
$100 Site Donor 2025
Very true. I bought it new in 1999 and "loaned" it to my father-in-law about 5-6yrs ago. It probably has a few hundred hours on it and 5-6 total oil changes. The factory carburetor is still on it.
Looks like Ford could learn something. Apparently they recommend 150k miles on their Ecoblue 2.0 diesel and shops are seeing degradation at around 100k or less. Perhaps it's the oil change interval?
And to think years back they would raise hell and call you stupid for putting transmission fluid on a V-Belt to quiet it down.
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- Nov 20, 2013
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I can only imagine how many failures there will be. An expensive job on an inexpensive compact car to replace that wet belt someday. I think there will be a lot of people that just won't do it.
I'd bet that was the idea.
They'll end up trading the car in and it gets sold to some schlemiel wage earner who has no idea about maintenance history nor the $$ to take care of it after spending the $$ on the used car.
Stellantis have had a wet timing belt problem in their 3cylinder Puretech engine and have recently reverted to chain drive.
Everything already mentioned contributed to belt failure - wrong oil spec, not changing oil and belt debris blocking oil pickup. An additional issue cited is fuel contaminated oil. They worked ok with a meticulous maintenance schedule but that's not the real world for many car owners these days.
Everything already mentioned contributed to belt failure - wrong oil spec, not changing oil and belt debris blocking oil pickup. An additional issue cited is fuel contaminated oil. They worked ok with a meticulous maintenance schedule but that's not the real world for many car owners these days.
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See, what I read long time ago is that with every new generation of car owner, the more clueless and lazy they become.
That car manufacturers put TPS (tire pressure sensors) on their new vehicles because the vehicle owners are too lazy to check their tire pressure or don't know how. Same with checking the oil dipstick . And why the manual transmission is such a rare thing . Laziness, uneducated , run it into the ground-mentality.
So....I can just imagine the average car buyer having a Wet Belt vehicle and never popping open the hood , not even knowing how to add windshield fluid....and driving around with a self imploding engine that never gets the oil level checked or the oil schedule being maintained.
Maybe the car manufacturers figured it out. Sell the public something that goes to the early car grave yard so they can go buy another new one. Make the car buying public think this is normal.
Don't forget that as of 2025, 25% of new cars are leased. Maintenance is quickly becoming a thing of the past for these people. They couldn't care less what their belts are made from.
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I think we should separate oil pump wet belts and timing wet belts. I hate both with equal passion and think they shouldn't exist, but the main sour lemon seems to be the PSA (Peugeot) Puretech, which was used in plenty of models, used a wet timing belt, and was a disaster.
Then there are the ford 3-cyl oil pump belts that shred material which then clogs the oil pickup.
Then we have some Honda wet timing & oil pump belts which are sortakinda fine but still had recalls and are not at the usual Honda reliability level, then some GM small engines (Traxx and such) that are problem free enough for the other issues to kill the ownership first.
Then there are the ford 3-cyl oil pump belts that shred material which then clogs the oil pickup.
Then we have some Honda wet timing & oil pump belts which are sortakinda fine but still had recalls and are not at the usual Honda reliability level, then some GM small engines (Traxx and such) that are problem free enough for the other issues to kill the ownership first.
Agree.
Also agree on the crank-located gerotor pumps being the best. Why do you think that the designs even went away from that? I can see oil pump priming being faster if the pump is submerged in the oil pan, but not enough to matter.
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M
Beat me to it. For my primary car (last 15 years) I do a 3 year/36,000 mile lease. Being retired, that many miles seems to work well. But I don't think I'd buy a 15 year old 150,000 mile beater with a wet belt.
God how i hate these shenanigans from manufacturers that make engines like that. There was nothing wrong with conventional oil pump design and yet they make crap like this, wet timing and oil pump belts 
slo town
$200 Site Donor 2026
I think this can be an excellent strategy. We have retired friends who do this. They like Lincolns (haha) and have been doing 3 year leases for the last 15 years. About the only thing they do to it is run it through a car wash once in awhile and get the oil changed at Jiffy Lube at the maximum proper interval. They never even have to put new tires on their cars. It turns their car ownership into a trouble free, fixed expense.
Scott
You can thank CAFE standards for most of the shenanigans manufacturers are doing these days. Everything they do is to reduce fuel consumption and hydrocarbon emissions. Belts are more efficient than chains at power transmission. Smaller bearing surfaces reduce frictional losses. Thinner oils reduce frictional losses. That 0.1 mpg gained is huge to the manufacturer in regards to average corporate fuel mileage. It's worth 100's of millions of dollars to the car manufacturer, that's why they do it. Think of the 900,000 Ford pickups sold every year. That 0.1 mpg is huge to them.
Easy? Not when you consider there is a metal cover that can not leak oil when the job is done. Dry belt just a plastic cover and can have some bolts missing and still do the job.
I suppose they can cheap out and have a one time use plastic cover for them too.
There were supposed to be designs in the works to allow a wet belt replacement with a new 'master-link' type of wet belt. In other words, a more simple replacement. Maybe I'll design one and get rich off all the upcoming failures.... Just kidding good designs hold up well if oil changes are frequent
My wife's Bronco Sport has the 1.5L 3cyl Ecoboost with a wet belt for the oil pump. There is another member here that had the same motor in their Ford Escape and got close to 300K miles before the oil pump pickup tube started to get clogged up with belt material and eventual low oil pressure drop outs. IIRC, it was cheaper for him to replace the motor than to pay the labor for the wet belt replacement that is pretty layered into the engine.
I was not hip to wet belts when I bout the Bronco Sport and would have avoided it if I had known. Than being said, when I went down the rabbit hole of wet belts and associated failures, it was usually wrong spec oils used and/or extended oil change intervals with most of the failures from Europe market models that do extend OCI's as a norm.
I was not hip to wet belts when I bout the Bronco Sport and would have avoided it if I had known. Than being said, when I went down the rabbit hole of wet belts and associated failures, it was usually wrong spec oils used and/or extended oil change intervals with most of the failures from Europe market models that do extend OCI's as a norm.
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