Timing Belt & Water Pump question?

Hey guys. I have a 02 Accord with only 51000 miles on it. I'm no car expert and always thought Honda timing belts had a good 80,000-10,000 miles on them. I recently stumbled upon a post that said it should be replaced every 10 years. I don't have the owners manual as I bought the car used and was curious if that fact was true?

If so, should I just go ahead and replace the water pump too? Any heads up would be great. Is there any other maintenance that should be done that I dont know about? I bought the car with 45000 on it and have no maintenance history before that. Sorry for the newb question. Thanks fellas!

It depends on your location and conditions the car has been driven in. Yes, you should replace the water pump when doing the timing belt; it is like and extra 5 mins of work and considering the amount of time it takes to get the belt off it is well worth the extra effort.

You can check out the Honda maintenance schedule for your car here:

http://www.honda.ca/owners/honda-services/maintenance-calculator

I believe the Honda Accord interval for TB change is every 100k and at 168k correct me if i'm wrong.. Most people change the water pump with their timing belt

Edit: Just realized your in Chicago and I posted a Canada link

wow.. only 51000 miles!!! That's like 6500ish a year... anyway back to your question.. Yes when you replace the belt do the water pump.. its well worth it.. its a pain in the *** to do it the first time, dont want to do it again a few thousand miles later... I will say i bought my accord with 187,000 miles on it and it had never had a timing belt done (according to the old owner and their extensive records they kept) So i did mine then and the belt looked great, and almost like new.... Me i like to be on the safe side, fix it before i have a problem.. The worst part is there is no real warning that the belt is going to break... If your the only owner and havent driven the car hard for the 51000 miles it wouldnt worry me until i got to the 80000 miles..

Yeah, 98+ timing belts have a 105k/7yr service interval and the older ones are something like every 60k.

TIME PLAYS AN IMPORTANT FACTOR. I just put a new cylinder head on a 97 Accord that only had 43,000 miles on it. Guess what? Timing belt broke after 14 years of exposure to the elements.

Yah, people think cars only age by miles. But they forget rubber and other soft materials break down over time also.

you can allways remove the crank pulley (with the special tool) and pull the timing cover off to do an extensive inspection. read up on it and make shure you have the tools, time and at least one manual.

I bet you belt is fine but then again you never know for shure till you find out the hard way.

Thanks everybody for the info. You guys are awesome!

I'm probably going to hold off one more year and get it done in '12. Wish me luck!

I know that when I replaced my belt a few days ago it was looking good as new! so you probably dont have to worry!!!

cantafordaccord said:

I know that when I replaced my belt a few days ago it was looking good as new! so you probably dont have to worry!!!

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Awesome. How many miles did you have on it?