I have the need to know, for those of you who are in the know, is there one manufacturer for our vehilcles that stands above the rest in quality and durability?

I installed an autozone belt at 90000, just now am i thinking "was it the right choice"? then threw the old in the storage compartment in the rear fro a road spare.

J

 

I usually buy Gates or Dayco, but really I wouldn't worry about it since you have the old one for a spare, which is a good thing.

 

Whether or not it is for our trucks or a Chevy the belts from one company are all teh same quality.
I always buy name brand when it comes to belts and hoses, like Goodyear or Gates.

 

In my experience Gates and Goodyear seem to last longer than Dayco ...at least in years past that was the case. I don't buy anything else. Ask at Autozone who supplies their belts, it might be Goodyear since a lot of their hose is goodyear.

Mark G

 

I decided to go with the gates belt and tentioner. a very good company with nicely engeneered products. (imho)

thier belts are made of epdm (ethylene propelen monomer) basically that means a longer lasting belt over regular neoprene belts that have a max life expenctancy of 80000 miles at a stretch, and recommened service changes at 50k to 60k.

the epdm belts have a max expectancy of 150k but recommmend a change any where around 90k or at any time visual inspection requires.

I'm going to minimize my risk and take that dayco NAPA belt off as soon as the gates arrives.

I hope this helps others,

J

 

BTW, i am tempted to try the goodyear gatorback belt but i couldnt identify, other than it has carbon fiber contruction mixed in, Which sounds nice, but no conclusion were able to drawn from the vague description.

this leaves too many questions for those of you like me who try and use the best products available on your land rover,

 

I worked for NAPA for 14+ years and there belts and hoses were always gates unless they changed recently..

 

i know they vary stock depending on the area, around here they dont carry a huge stock, but all they had on hand was dayco. i like NAPA, the guys here can order a lot of stock, but their land rover listing are very poor, 95 % of the time they tell me they cant get it.

as for my other family cars of typical makes and models, they are right there with next day service.

in fact, i wish they made the adaptive brake pads for the land rover, because i love them on the other 3 cars we have.