It's a tough one, but it all depends if you can afford the risk.

Either drop 1K for piece of mind or live by the seat of your pants thinking it could go anytime.

Some say the belts are good for the life of the water pump which is approx 160K.

+1 for getting it changed and do the water pump while your at it :victory:

+1 for changing it also.  I did with mine.  As previously said, it hurts the pocket but for piece of mind, its fine by me.  Plus the damage it can cause should it give way.....:Dntknw:

previous car was a 1994 mazda astina sold it last year with 70 odd thousand k's never changed the timing belt, i think your are all panaking. has subaru had problem with broken belts before?

My belt was fine, but the tensioner that hads the belt tight to the cogs, wasnt tensioning anymore.. There was a possibility that it could have jumped a tooth, and honestly, the car felt alot better to drive after it too..

I'm not disputing that the belt should be changed. I just think the costs should be worn by the Dealer as they sold me a car that had outstanding service requirements. My fault that may be but it doesn't excuse them.

Whilst writing this post I called Suby Aust about it and they quoted this from their website "Every Subaru Assured Used Vehicle has had the service history validated and checked to ensure that it is up to date"

She then went on to say that if someone called and asked about their warranty and a car's service state to get the warranty, she would tell them that the car has to be up to date with services due by time or klms.
She agreed with my point of view and said she'd look into it.

What would you do if you hardly drove the car? Some people drive their cars barely once a week but i doubt they'll go around changing timing belts every 4yrs eventho they've hardly driven it. I'm just thinking age will wear out the belt and the tensioners.

The Suby person I'm dealing with offered the Subaru Assured manager, before they take the issue further, an oppurutnity to reconsider after originally knocking it on the head. The Assured manager agreed to look into the situation. Will find out Tuesday of the outcome when they are back in the office.

HERE is what is advertised on Suby Aust's site about the Assured Warranty cars
What does this imply to you considering I'm expected to meet klm AND time requirements to maintain the warranty ?

scottb721 wrote:

The Suby person I'm dealing with offered the Subaru Assured manager, before they take the issue further, an oppurutnity to reconsider after originally knocking it on the head. The Assured manager agreed to look into the situation. Will find out Tuesday of the outcome when they are back in the office.
HERE is what is advertised on Suby Aust's site about the Assured Warranty cars
What does this imply to you considering I'm expected to meet klm AND time requirements to maintain the warranty ?

Lastest update -
"I have no further news to offer at this stage other than that our Subaru Assured Manager is currently awaiting to hear back from ******* Subaru. I apologise for the delay and assure you that I am still committed to pursueing this issue."

a lil off topic, but my old man had his belts changed on his porsche at 75... kms

15 thous later the new belts went, and i tell you he was not happy at all,

had it fixed by the guys (licenced porsche place) they didnt charge him the second time around coz he deals with them all the time and could tell he was not happy.

so yer dont matter who and where even when you do ya belts there is always that chance somethign could go rong.

just my 2 cents worth

Well, time for an update.
I did the 75k service last week. Subaru's Assured Manager rang on Monday of this week and offered to pay half of what is still to be done to bring the car up to 100k service level. He assured me my warranty was fine as the car has had regular servicings.

Yesterday I made a call to the company that actually underwrites and runs the Subaru Assured warranty ans said that I was very miss-informed. My car only has a very limited warranty and the car didn't actually meet the minimum warranty standard in the 1st place and went on to say a refund was available.

Next I called the selling dealer and they seemed more interested in it than previously. Anything they knew prior to my call was what Suby Oz told them.

My Suby Oz customer service POC, who has gone above the call of duty for me,  says it's black and white in my favour and can't believe they are dragging it out and not seeing it for what it is.

If the warranty was out of the equation when buying  I would have bought the other MY03 is was looking at, one with only 15k less on the clock, so I ain't rolling over on this issue, that's for sure.
More to come !  :-)

Car goes in for it's free 100k service Monday at dealer of my choice :-) and both Subaru Oz and The Warranty Group (company that runs Subaru's Assured used car warranty) called yesterday to let me know that my policy was being reinstated and I would get something in the mail stating as much.

A win for good guys! YAY!