If a person watches the belt alignment and has no damage to a belt what is the normal mileage or life of the drive belt?
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If a person watches the belt alignment and has no damage to a belt what is the normal mileage or life of the drive belt?
A very good question. Anybody have belt life issues?:helpsmilie:
Without damage, I would replace the drive belt based upon age and where the vehicle lives. If you store the spyder in a garage and only ride it in nice weather, I think the life would be indefinite. If you keep the spyder outside, exposed to the elements, especially heat and sun, then 6-7 year life is probably what you will get.
Long life for sure--100,000 plus--IF--you stay away from those pesky rocks--or install a rock guard. :thumbup:
My Spyder will is never left outside only on a trip. It will always be maintained and service and never misused. It is not rode in the winter if the roads are bad. I do ride in cold weather with heated gear. About 20,000 miles a year. I will trade it off around 50 to 60 thousands miles so it don't sound like I will have to replace a belt if it don't get damaged.
Is the belt Guard a good item to install?
Don't buy yourself needless trouble, don't even bother thinking about it! :shocked: These belts are generally good for hundreds of thousands of miles or more & there are similar belts out there now that are over 20 years old! Just do the normal specified maintenance (which for the belts, isn't a heap!) & just get out there & ......
Ride more, worry Less! :2thumbs:
IIRC, there have been a couple of ryders who reported theirs broke something north of 100k. When I was talking to the Spyder project manager at Homecoming about shielding the belt he said if it was enclosed it would tend to run hotter and the life would probably only be around 60k. That leads me to believe that 100k+ is about as good an estimate as there is.
We have had many belt related threads here but cannot remember any to do with high mileage and being worn out. All other problems we have had discussed here...rocks, cuts. burned, to tight to loose teeth missing etc. Most don't even keep the spyder long enough for that to happen...:roflblack:
Replaced my belt at 50,000 miles. 80% of teeth where cracked. Causing a weird noise coming from the belt when belt warmed up.
Not sure if spyderann01 is still on the original belt on her RT.
As I eluded to in my previous post, heat is the killer of rubber. Here in Arid-Zone-A we replace car/truck tires every 6-7 years. Lots of tread but sidewall cracking will happen as the tires rot from the inside out. Ever wonder why you see lots of road gators in the desert? Rubber belts are no different. They will rot with heat over time and crack into a useless mess. They can "look" ok on the outside while being rotten in the middle. Just do a very close inspection and look for cracking of the rubber. If you find cracking, you are on borrowed time. Having said that, these belts a tough and will take a lot of abuse. I just choose to have a good belt rather than take the chance of being stranded by one that fails.
I have the original belt in the 14 RT with 123,000 miles on it. I did break a belt in my 10 RT around 35,000 miles though.
Found it! It was a post by Buckeye Chuck 54.
http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...=1#post1303061
Wasn't a broken belt, but teeth starting coming off at 108,000.
Just had my 15 rtl in for 19,000 mile service
mechanic said my drive belt has excessive wear
On the way home now makes growling noise when
letting off throttle belt looks ok to me no rock holes or teeth
missing. Wondering if I should take it to another
dealer and chalk it up to them putting the belt too tight or what
Ok thanks with exception of replacing the rear tire
this particular dealer is the only one to touch it since new
because they suckered me into the maintenance plan
I would check the cogs on the belt. As I posted earlier in this thread mine had 80% of these cogs cracked all the way thru. Mike I run my belt.around.120 to 130 lbs. Bruce
Safecracker, Don't wish you problems, but glad to hear that I'm not the only one with what I consider premature wear from drive belt. Mine gave up the ghost @ 49K, ALL the remaining teeth were cracked all the way through; dropped 19+ out all at once and I too ran my belt in that same kricket range. I was accused of being abusive to my belt; I do ride aggressively.
Will be doing what Mike and others have don and that's lowering the on ground readings down towards 100# on the cricket gauge.
Al in Kazoo
Well I guess my problem wasn't the belt
looks like transmission crapped out. Goes into
gear but won't move forward or reverse. just makes
grinding noise drive pulley on engine side
won't attempt to move :banghead: