Wet belts are something where I get the theory behind it, reduction in friction losses leads to efficiency increases, but it shouldn’t be implemented in practice because oil eats rubber, just use dry belts or chains like everyone else, or even geartrains like heavy truck engines or high-speed race engines use, the idea behind geartrains for the former being greater long-term reliability than belts or chains, and the idea behind them for the latter being better responsiveness at high RPMs.
I get why manufacturers did it.Wet belt perishes outside warranty or after the lease contract ends. Customer ends up footing the bill.
This being said, I just replaced the belt on my vw at 150k km/ 93k miles and coming up on 10 years. VW recommends it. Some markets they recommend replacing it sooner. That’s arguably a shorter interval than some wet belts.
But then again unlike a wet belt, it cost me less than 400 Euros/$, much cheaper than a wet belt.
Wet belts are something where I get the theory behind it, reduction in friction losses leads to efficiency increases, but it shouldn’t be implemented in practice because oil eats rubber, just use dry belts or chains like everyone else, or even geartrains like heavy truck engines or high-speed race engines use, the idea behind geartrains for the former being greater long-term reliability than belts or chains, and the idea behind them for the latter being better responsiveness at high RPMs.
I get why manufacturers did it.Wet belt perishes outside warranty or after the lease contract ends. Customer ends up footing the bill.
This being said, I just replaced the belt on my vw at 150k km/ 93k miles and coming up on 10 years. VW recommends it. Some markets they recommend replacing it sooner. That’s arguably a shorter interval than some wet belts.
But then again unlike a wet belt, it cost me less than 400 Euros/$, much cheaper than a wet belt.