Timing belt OEM Toyota or Gates

Don't cheap out on the timing belt. Get the entire kit with rollers, tensioner and water pump. If it fails it is catastrophic. I use Gates kits all the time.

Usually with auto parts you get what you pay for. So pay a little more for better quality stuff. The brands I like to go with for timing belts are gates and continental.

Gates belt is great but I'm not convinced that anyone not tracking their car needs it. Even then, it's probably not necessary 80% of the time.

I had about 205,000 miles on my avalon when i traded it in... that had the original timing belt.

I have a 2002 V6. I bought it new and didn't change the original timing belt until 2015 at 181,613 miles. I didn't have a particular REASON to change it then. I just decided I wanted peace of mine that I wouldn't get stranded somewhere. My old one was a little cracked, but who knows how much longer it would've lasted.

My gates belt looks identical to that and has ever since 5 miles after i changed it, and that was like 4 years ago....

I would highly recommend replacing the oem hydrolic tensioner and pulley with a conversion kit to the older style manual mk3 tensioner. The kit provides an idler pulley. Very nice kit from integrated engineering. This is a sure way to avoid another possible failure and i would also recommend going with a gates timing belt. I just did this job on my1.8t and am very happy with it and can sleep peacefully at night knowing i won't have a failure.

i got the gates racing timing belt. have had no complaints about the belt. other than it squeaking at first and making me think something was wrong.

Bumping this necro-thread to add my review for anyone searching the archives. Bought the ultimate plus with Gates belt kit. Car started rattling like a diesel last night. Quick inspection shows a loose timing belt, hydraulic fluid everywhere and a dead tensioner. Total mileage since install 28,225 and less than two years (21 months). I was lucky to have caught it before it jumped teeth and pistons met valve train. Just wanted to caution people to pay attention to the warning signs. If your car sounds like a diesel or a spray bomb being shaken, take a quick look under the timing belt cover and replace what you need to before driving any further...

So my gates racing belt snapped. This is the reason i bought gates so my t belt wouldnt break, 40 miles after valves were replaced t belt breaks. Fantastic. They have great QC. Just kidding. There had to have been a flaw, the way it broke