Taipan wrote:Funkycowie wrote:Always stick to OEM, I have had a couple of non OEM belts snap (Athena and Malossi), the worst was only after 1500 miles. I had just overtaken a lorry over taking a lorry being over taken by a car which was going at about 60mph, so I was in lane 4 on the M25 and lost all power, luckily I was able to coast over to the hard shoulder. The belt (Malossi) has shredded to bits and wrapped around everything, luckily no damage but took about 1 hour to cut and untangle.
TMax owners have been able to run their belts as high as 22k miles, almost x2 as much as the service interval, before changing. If a non-oem lasts only 1-8k miles you're not saving any money, just chucking money at shite.
I remember fiting a chinese belt to my mk1 tmax as Suttons had belts on back order and were quoting 10 days to delivery. I only got 600 miles out of the chinese belt and that was taking it easy!
Saved me using the trains though, so it was still a better option, but 600 miles!!!
I wondered if Malossi had upped their game in the last few years, but clearly not!. No worries though, Fowlers have dispatched my new one to me this morning. I juts need 300 more miles out of the Malossi and am suddenly nervous of it making it!
My 06 Sukida obviously had a chinese belt, brand new, got about 400 miles out of it too before it shredded, out in the middle of no where, in Shetland, importer sent me another, that broke in no time, used a Gates Rubber equivalent instead, no more problems.
Best to buy quality.
No problems with my Piaggio X8, and I did a fair few miles too, two rear tyres worth, I dont know what make of belt they use.