Darnd'est thing happen'd on the way home last week, timing belt broke on my Miata. The odd thing is, it had maybe 1000-1500 miles on it at the time.
Granted, that is over the course of several months ( I know, lame, lame and super lame for not driving it more but I have 6 cars to drive ...) but that is NOTHING as far time and mileage.

This is the first time I've had one break in operation. No drama at all, it just stopped running like I turned the key off.

The belt itself has a nice clean break, not quite as nice as a knife cut but even and straight, not all jagged like I imagined it would be.

I'm going to go back and check my receipts to see where I bought the belt from and the mfg of the belt.

So, has anybody else run into a very short lived timing belt?
Are there brands we KNOW we should avoid?
The next belt is coming from Fly'nMiata..

 

nope, and i abuse the hell out of mine when installing/reinstalling multiples times.

 

Must have been a defect. Been using regular 'ol replacement belts forever no issues.

 

Usually a clean break happens when the belt is folded over on itself really badly, otherwise defect.

Ive used cheapo belts and expensive ones, none have broken or shown wear prior to 25000 km

 

I have to assume it was a defective belt, if the tensioner was faulty and allowed the belt to slacken enough to crease/fold, it seems it would have happened at the upper RPM range. I was cruising steady state at 3k when it broke. with all the valve train work, I have the limiter at 7500k and reach that regularly without issue (seems like that would stress the tensioner more, if it was an issue).

 

I had this happens years ago, now I buy the blue ones.

 

+1, I had an OEM belt start to come apart on Theseus after ~12 hours of track time. Switched to a Gates Kevlar belt and the issues are gone.

 

Any belt will break like that if crimped in any direction, including (espeically?) the fancy gates.