devinb30

Hey guys recently picked up my 2000 Sc300. it has 124k miles runs and drives like a dream no problems.

But i have no records of maintenance

I know after a 100K miles any car should have the timing belt and water pumped changed.

Being that my car is a little bit past that, How can i know if it needs to be replaced? or has not already been changed?

Im sure no one would just change a belt and not replace the water pump. But you never know. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated!

Davidddd

iTrader: (1)

Open up timing belt cover and check the condition of the belt!

devinb30

lol i guess that my only option here huh..

So if my belt looks good or new should i worry about water pump? cause if a water pump goes bad it will leak or the car will over heat.. Correct me if im wrong.

- V -

iTrader: (1)

unless the previous owner did the work himself, most shops will change the pump along with the timing belt simply because you have to take the belt off to change the waterpump. Still, if you have the chance to check the pump, do it. Can never be too safe.

greens14

iTrader: (28)

make sure you get several full turns on the crank when inspecting the belt. mark it if you have to so that you can inspect teeth for a full rotation. I inspected mine and it look FANTASTIC............for about 75% of the belt lol.

99SC42

iTrader: (44)

I bought my 02 GS300 with 50k miles same engine as your 2000 SC300, I drove the car for another 76k miles before replacing the timing and water pump.
So not all off them gets replace at that time

7years ago i bought a 95 GS300 with 205k miles on it and it had the original water pump and timing belt on it when i bought the car, so not everyone does those types of maintenance on their cars.

now my 02 gs300 has 255k miles and needs another water pump and timing belt job.

So if i were you , i would just do those maintenance just because you are not sure and you can't really tell unless it was done couple under or 1k miles ago.
Whater pump you can tell if it has been replaced , timing belt you can't tell by just looking at the outside of the belt because it always spining on the pulley and the pulley puts a little bit of wear marks on it.

So just do it!

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

^yes what he said.
waterpump you can usually tell if it has faded the same color as the other accessories. if its nice and super clean compared to everything else it has most likely been changed at some point cause no one just washes their waterpump.

timing belt varies alot. some peoples belts look bad before the interval, some look fine until double the suggested interval. it is hard to predict when a belt will "let go", hence the recommended interval is more of a prevention than something that is actually wrong.

feterbush

I bought a clean '93 SC300 a month ago; it came with zero maintenance history (did I mention it's really clean?). I'm still sorting it out and have some questions.

First, can anyone tell me how to determine which engine I have? I'm led to believe from these posts that there's one with variable valve timing and one without.

Also, can someone who actually knows the correct answer tell me whether either of these motors is an interference design?

2jpowa

iTrader: (3)

They are non interference motor, 98+ sc300 are vvti any beloiw that year are not.

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

You can tell by the extra stuff on the drivers side cam cover, it wont look like the passenger side it will have this big circular actuator thing on the end of the cam. since you have a 93 if its the original engine you do not have vvti.
the vvti is actually an interference motor due to the variable cam timing.
non vvti are all non-inteference.