Timing belt question

I have a question for you guys... I just rolled over 60k on my 97 eagle talon esi... and my mechanic suggested i replace my timing belt for maintenance ... well that will cost $320 to fix... and i was wondering do i need to replace it for maintenance or should i just hold off until it goes? Right now my car is running great and i just made a 3k road trip with no problems. Please let me know... i have an appointment for thursday but if i don't need to do it then i won't... as my boyfried told me, " if it ain't broke, don't fix it" Please help me out. Thanks!
Kat:)

Well Kat, your boyfriend might be right, but then again he might be wrong.... I have a 95 esi which is pretty much the same thing you have. about 2 months after i bought my talon i was driving down the road and i heard something pop and my car died. "what the hell i just bought this thing" turns out my timing belt broke and i ended up spending around $1600.00 to fix all the bent valves and stuff on my engine....my talon only had 63000 miles on it... my mechanic told me you need to replace the timing belt about every 60 to 70 thousand miles....so you decide ..... sorry!!!! ---also its not a task to try and do on your own we've done it on mine and its a real pain...

Thanks,

Yea i heard that it is a bitch an a half to replace and i really don't have that type of money to fix it if it breaks. man.... there goes this week's paycheck to replace it i guess.

thanks for your help
kat:)

well if you decide to replace the timing belt replace the balance shaft belt as well because that is the belt that mainly breaks, if the belt isnt loose or making noise i wouldnt worry about replacing it but is always a good thing to replace

u are deffinatley right if it breaks u will be lookin at a lot more money than 300 some belive me i jus fucked my car all up doin a timing belt job i didnt have tensioner tight enough and went to turn it over and it jumped timing and i bent some valves and its gonna be really expensive now

katschmitty;
While the concerns expressed here are valid, I think 60,000 miles is a bit early to be changing the belt. Obviously though, you don't want to wait until it goes.

My first belt failed on my car when it had almost 90,000 miles on it. Several of the cogs tore right off the belt, which caused the belt to jump on the pulleys and go out of time. I put nearly 100,000 miles on the belt I replaced that one with. I didn't intend to go that long, but I was checking it regularly and saw no reason why it should be replaced. It really all comes down to how the belt is holding up over time. Like a V belt, you check it by looking for cracking, splitting, and signs of deterioration on the rubber. You can do this yourself by taking the top of the belt cover off and getting a good close look at it. You'll need to jog the engine around to get a look at the whole belt. Also, while you have the cover off, you'll be able to tell if your tensioner is still working ok.

As long as the belt still looks good and has tension, I wouldn't bear the expense of changing it just yet. If you take a good look at it with each oil change, or at least every 6 months, you should be able to get many thousands more miles out of it.

One last thing; $320 is a good price to change the belt. Just be sure the mechanic is good. I paid very special attention to the belt tensioner when I did mine, and I believe that is very necessary. Not all mechanics would take the time that I did, and the fact is that they need to in order to insure the tensioner will keep tension on the belt for years to come.

Mark