Timing belts, and such

"You know, Don," Jim casually remarked, as I paid for my oil change, "I wonder if your engine has ever had it's timing belt replaced?"

"Huh?" I alertly responded, as my brain's search engines did a quick scan of my memory banks, seeking fruitlessly for data about "timing belts."

"Yas, yas," he drawled, or words to that effect.  "Your car has 97,000 miles on it."  (Not bad for a '96 Corolla, I remark to myself.)  "The timing belt really needs to be changed every 60,000 miles."

Now I bought the car ten years ago, when it had about 49,000 miles, before a timing belt change would have been performed.  And I'm sure no one's ever muttered the words  "timing belt" in my presence during any of the servicing I've had done since that time.

"So, do you think the belt needs changing?"

"Well, there's no way to tell until we take the engine apart.  And by that time, actually changing the belt will be the least of your expense."

Somehow I don't like the way this is going.  "Well, what happens if I don't get it done?"

"Wrecks the engine, or at least badly damages it."  (Possible "irreparable engine damage," as Wikipedia put it, when I later looked up the topic.)

"Will it be expensive?"  Jim gets that compassionate look on his face that repairmen get when they're about to lower the boom.  He gives me an estimate.

I'm not going to tell you the amount of the estimate.  You'd only leave comments on my blog telling me how your Uncle Randy, a renowned auto mechanic, would have done it for a quarter of that price.  Let's just say that the ground seemed to tremble, the service station seemed to swirl about me, and tears flooded my eyes.

"I'll think it over," I stammered, as I staggered over to my car and gunned it out of the station.  That was a week ago.  I'm driving down to Ashland in a couple of weeks to meet an old friend and snag a couple of plays at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival.  That's 460 miles each way.  I contemplated the vision of my engine's exploding before my startled eyes somewhere around Eugene.

Luckily, we consumers now have access to the internet.  I don't have to rely solely on Jim's word that such a thing as a timing belt even exists.  Unfortunately, it does.  It connects the cam shaft to the crankshaft.  Of course.  How else is the cam shaft going to turn?  How did I think those little valvey things would pop open and shut if the cam shaft weren't spinning?  More to the point, several on-line articles also confirmed both the fact that the timing belt needs to be changed every 60,000 miles and the full extent of engine carnage that could easily result if it wasn't.

Resignedly, I phoned the station.  I made the arrangements.  I took the car in this morning.  Its engine probably is being disassembled right now, even as I type.  Jim's son can now rest assured that his old man will be able to pay for his Harvard tuition.

I wonder if my life would have been happier if I'd never heard about the threat posed by a failing timing belt.  Just as I sometimes wonder whether I really need the doctor to tell me about my blood pressure.  Which -- at the moment -- almost certainly is elevated.