I purchased a 98 QX4 with only 80,000km (49800miles) on it. I'm pretty sure the timing belt hasn't been done on the vehicle. I've checked the owner's manual and it says to replace the timing belt every 168,000km or 105K miles. It does not say that it should be replaced X miles or X years whichever comes first. Should I be concerned?

I live in Vancouver, BC where the temperatures are mild and the car has been kept in a garage all its life.

You're probably alright considering the mileage, but the car is 16 years old and the belt may very well be original. It really wouldn't hurt to replace the timing belt as preventative maintenance. One less thing you'll have to worry about in the future.

Money is a bit tight right now. I was thinking of stretching it a bit further, but will definitely replace it a 20-30K before the 168K mark. Thanks for your response.

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I started to think about this again. I just replaced my radiator which was leaking, and would ideally want to stretch it for another year to 1.5 or so (i'm in school right not but will be working soon). I'd just like some more opinions. The car is at 96,000km right now which is 59,000 miles

I'm at 125k miles now and I bought mine at 108k miles on it. I looked and couldn't verify if mine has been done or not. I look at the grommets or rubber washer under the nuts holding the timing belt cover on and mine are hard and have cracks in them, meaning to me that the cover hasn't been taken off because those should be new...you would think. So to answer your question I would say you can go to 125k without worry.

Thank you for your response. The car has been garaged all of its life and the weather is fairly mild here in Vancouver. I think I will go another year before changing it, probably still well below the 105k miles mark. I'm not sure why I didn't think about this before I flushed my cooling system and replaced the radiator, because I woould have been more inclined to do this sooner.

By the way, is there a way to take off the timing belt cover to inspect?

You could take off the valve cover and see part of the belt.
Taking the front cover off might or might not be easy depending on if a pulley is in the way or accessories are blocking access to bolts.

It looks like I will have to change this out earlier rather than sooner. I read online that oil SIGNIFICANTLY decreases the lifespan of timing belts, and I have a few leaks. I am not sure if the timing belt is soaked in oil, but it appears that it would be very difficult to inspect. I'm pretty concerned now, and will get some quotes within the next couple days or so.

I got a quote for the timing belt. Around 800 out the door with water pump and crankshaft seal as well.

The guy on the phone said to replace the cam seals will add another 4 hours of labour as they need to come out. I'm just wondering if this is accurate?

Thanks in advance.

4 hours to replace cam seals seems silly. Unbolting the retainers on the cams is a 10-20 minute job, tops. Popping out the seals is a 3 minute affair, and pressing in the new ones is the same. I'd say maybe an hour labor, tops.

What is kind of frustrating is that your quote is pretty fair, minus the cam seals. Haggle with the guy. If he doesn't play ball, find yourself another mechanic.

Spoke with the shop again earlier this morning, and the guy just said that he's going off of what it says on the book. He said that the one of the passenger side will take less time but the driver side is nightmare. Are there different ways to get at the camshaft seal? looked at the service manual (EM22) and it suggests that removing the camshafts are necessary. The discrepancy between the left and right camshaft seals suggests to me that the valve covers need to be removed (since the driver side is much harder to get to).

Oh, shoot. I have to apologize; completely forgot we were talking about a QX4 engine here. I was thinking of a DOHC 4 cylinder. It may take a bit more work to do the seals. He may not be far off. However, I wonder if you can still haggle with him since most of the same work to do the cam seals is similar to the timing belt/water pump.

UPDATE: Had the timing belt and the cam and crank seals. Turns out that the cams didn't have to come off to replace the seals, contrary to what the FSM and Snap-on guide says.

UPDATE: Had the timing belt and the cam and crank seals. Turns out that the cams didn't have to come off to replace the seals, contrary to what the FSM and Snap-on guide says.

Woohoo! Glad you got a great deal out of your needed maintenance. How did that old belt look?

The belt looked fine, but it had some oil on it. Apparently belts that break don't necessarily have significant signs of wear, so it's hard to say how long it could've gone for. The oil seals, on the other hand, were hard and leaky.
Ended up being $400 for labor and around $300 for parts. Pretty happy I got this done.