maintenance advice needed please

[michael bringloe]

I’m considering changing the timing belt on the wife’s 1998 renault scenic.

It’s done around 118k and we bought it with no service history so want to change the belt to be on the safe side.

I’m wondering if it’s worth changing the head gasket aswell? Kinda makes sense doing it while the timing is being disrupted anyway.

What are peoples thoughts on this?

Thanks

Topic

[college man]

I would suggest change the belt and maybe the water pump.

[Mike]

I would say only do the headgasket if that is a pattern failure point on that engine. I wouldn’t know about your model specifically because we don’t even have Renault dealers in the US and they are VERY rare to see on the road. You’ll want to research that a bit.

Most engines don’t have pattern headgasket failures, but Dodge Neons do, so I turned the wife’s timing belt job into a headgasket job even tough I wouldn’t normally do that if I was working on a good car.

[Erin]

While doing the timing belt is not a bad idea, you might want to leave the head gasket alone.

Taking things apart that do not need to come apart introduces opportunity for other problems to occur. Like say you decide to do the head gasket “just because”… Now what if other stuff breaks in the process? Besides, to do the head gasket, there is a lot more involved than just taking off a timing belt.

College man said about replacing the water pump. In that case, yes it is alright since the water pump will then be easy to get to. Assuming the timing belt drives the water pump like on honda engines.

It is hard to know if something should be changed sometimes. Of course shops manufacturers will recommend it but they are trying to make the most money. One time I took a Ford Taurus in for a coolant flush, they had a special on it. So why not, right? So I get in there and they wanted to change the water pump, alternator, and power steering pump, claiming they were all likely to fail. I refused. 40,000 miles later they were still fine. I got rid of the car for unrelated problems (back window was smashed in and the transmission was having problems.)

[michael bringloe]

Thanks guys, i’ll just stick to the timing belt.

According to wikipedia, these engines (renault K7M) do suffer from gasket failure but i’ll deal with that if/when it ever happens.

[Author]

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