I have been inspired by a raging brake rotor replacement (or not) thread to ask a similar question about Subarus, possibly at the risk of Jims sanity if he sees this thread.

I have been trying to find out why Subaru Australia replace timing belts at 125,000 kms when Subaru USA replace then at 169,000 kms (105k miles). Gates the belt manufacturer also recommend 169,000kms. I suspect we are just being overserviced to bring forward maintenance income with little or no reliability benefit.

Anybody know what the replacement mileage is in UK,Europe, Canada or elsewhere? The target machines are post 2007 models.

Not a Subie basher by the way. We have been continuous happy customers since 2001 with a variety of turbo and vanilla models spread over time and two countries.

 

Perhaps they consider the environment generally a little more harsh in Australia.

 

Yes, thats sort of the line they try to run, "each country submits its schedule and Subaru HQ approves". When pressed about how they arrived at the 125k figure there is nothing.

Apart from folklore of rugged Australian conditions , I dont really see Australian conditions being anymore harsh than US conditions generally. Really summers are comparable and winters a lot milder e.g. we dont have to deal with real winters like US, Canada and Europe. Subaru would agree as the Australian proposal is below their known maximum and has no downsides, just maintenance income upside.