Timing Belt Question

[grh1107]

kay recently I bought a 1994 v6 camry Xle with 200,000 miles on it. i want to go to pennslyvannia but its around 350 miles away. Ive done some work to the car but i didnt have a chance to get around to change the timing belt. according to the previous owner it was already changed but this is comming from a guy who had the wrong oil filter on his car. everything else seems fine. the ignition timing is alright and this seems to be the only way to check if the belts fine besides physically looking, and even if i did look i might not even be able to tell.

Do you think the car would break down?

Is there any other good way to the timing belt?

How can i check the cars service records?

[Brian R.]

Welcome to the AF!

I doubt you should worry about the car breaking down over that short of a drive. Expressway driving is pretty easy on a car.

You can't really tell much about how much life a timing belt has in it by looking. You might be able to tell something by using an x-ray and detecting broken fibres, but that is not practical since you would have the belt off anyway and might as well put on a new one at that point. Finding an x-ray tech who would shoot it might prove difficult also.

If the car was serviced at a dealer, then any Toyota dealer should be able to look up the maintenance history. If you can find out where the car was maintained, then you should be able to find out what you want about its history.