Timing belt OEM Subaru or OEM FORD

it's usually the plan with all my cars until repairs become more expensive than payments. our last car was an 2006 vw jetta tdi. sold it a few years ago (18 years old). it was still running fine-ish but a lot of things were coming up. timing belt and water pump, suspension overhaul, wheel bearings, brakes and caliper rebuild, and it was getting quite a bit of rust all around. it would have lasted and gone for 5+ more years but with 2 young kids getting into sports and stuff and the winter weather we are getting in our new home, it was a smart move to get a truck. with the aluminum body and ease of getting parts for the truck for maintenance as well as the f150 and coyote community, keeping the truck running for a long time should be easy.

That ring of belt material on the idler *implies* an anti-skip plate was installed too tight and rubbing on the belt, but I don't see one over the crank. The DOHC engines have them in the corners of the timing guide. SOHC manual trans engines had one over the crank but auto trans had none. Never reuse an unknown mileage/history belt... And even then, if you've already got in apart, just replace it. (For what it's worth Subarus service interval is 105k miles or 105 months.)

Did you use a high quality timing belt? We had a 98 impreza 2.2 and put an aftermarket timing belt kit on it and the belt broke in 30k miles for no reason. Tensioner and pulleys were all fine.

I actually ordered an oem sti timing belt and have had no issues.

The OEM Ford belt I replaced in a 1992 Escort looked better than that when I did it a year ago. Quality matters.

Pretty much all the newer Ford 4 and 3 cyl crap-box engines have what's called a wet belt for the timing. It's inside the engine as opposed to external like any sane normal or any moderately intelligent person would engineer.

Because of this, they require a VERY specific grade of oil, usually 0w-20 or 5w-20 full synthetic. If the wrong oil is used the belt will start to degrade and shred itself, this then starts plugging the oil pump pickup with rubber debris and starves the engine for oil. Or it just outright shreds and snaps, like yours did.

Bare in mind that this car uses a "wet belt" timing belt, where the timing belt runs inside the engine within the oil. This means that unless oil changes are carried out frequently, small parts of the belt break off and clock up the oil pickups, starving the engine and killing it.

Man i had some foo change my timing belt in my subaru and the timing belt broke less than a month after the warranty ended. So I had to get it done again. Super important thing to do with interference engine though

Regardless of servicing etc, that wet belt is still deteriorating as it is soaked in the hot engine oil.

If it has been done they are actually a good engine when working fine. Plenty of torque and good on fuel. It’s just the reliability of them that’s the major issue. They switched to a timing chain from the wet belt from 2018 for a good reason. The 1.2 turbo engines from PSA are also wet belts and also switched to a chain around 2023. They are a terrible design and simply not going to be economical to maintain properly as the car ages.