Timing Belt Replacement Cost: What You Should Actually Pay

Timing belt replacement cost only matters if your engine has a belt, so check that before anything else. Some engines use a timing chain instead, which is meant to last the life of the engine and isn't a scheduled service item.

If a shop quotes a timing belt for a car that has a chain, stop and get a second opinion. That's either a mistake or something worse.

Once you know it has a belt, three things decide the bill: the hours it takes to reach it, whether the water pump comes out with it, and which kit goes in. The rest of this page takes them in that order, then how to tell a belt from a chain and when yours is due.

What does a timing belt replacement cost?

A timing belt replacement costs $450 to $1,562 installed, depending on the car and the shop, and almost none of that is the belt, a strip of reinforced rubber that some shops call a camshaft belt. Most of what you pay for is the hours to reach it, and the worn parts around it that a good shop replaces while the covers are off.

Split any timing belt quote into two halves: the parts and the hours. The box below is the whole job as a national estimator publishes it; the parts are priced kit by kit for seventeen cars further down.

Labor is the half that moves. Shop labor averaged $132 an hour in 2026, and the typical rate falls around $120 to $159.

How long does it take to replace a timing belt?

Not from a guide you can open. The books a US shop actually looks up are sold by subscription, and Mitchell 1 and Alldata both keep their hours behind one, which is why no row above carries labor hours.

The one public source is the carmakers' own service bulletins, the written instructions they send their dealers. The ones we read price timing belt work from 0.6 to 4.3 hours, the low single digits of hours, on a four and on a V6 alike.

Read those as a shape rather than as your quote: they're warranty times, what a carmaker pays its own dealers, and they leave out the belt, pump, idlers and coolant going in. That's the number to hold when you work out what a repair estimate says: which guide is the shop reading, and is its answer in the same world.

Hours in the carmakers' bulletins 2 entries

• Stellantis 09-014-24: 0.6 and 3.5 hoursLabor operation 09-10-02-91, “Timing Belt, Inspect, Remove and Install or Replace”, 3.5 hours, and 09-10-02-90, “Timing Belt, Inspect and Tighten Spacer”, 0.6 hours, on the 2.0-liter diesel four in the Jeep Compass and Meridian.
• Honda 16-054 and Acura 14-025: 2.6 to 4.3 hoursA chirp repair on the 3.5-liter V6 that orders the belt job's own teardown (wheel, undercover, drive belt, crankshaft pulley, covers, belt off and on): 2.6 hours on the Pilot, Odyssey, Passport, Ridgeline, MDX, RLX and TLX, 2.7 on the RDX, and 4.3 on the RLX Sport Hybrid.

How much of the bill is parts?

Usually the smaller share. The seventeen complete kits priced further down cost $25 to $431 at the counter, less than the cheapest installed job in the box above, $450.

The rest of the bill is mostly labor, plus what a shop charges for the parts it fits. So the brand you shop hard on moves the smallest part of the bill, and the rate you agree to moves the largest.

The same estimator splits its own figures the same way: on the Civic, labor is $329 to $482 against $122 to $205 in parts, and on the Accord $482 to $707 against $281 to $480. The exception is the top of the RAV4's range, where parts reach $527 against $483 of labor.

The estimator's range by model 5 entries

• Civic, Corolla$450–$687 and $458–$785.
• RAV4, Camry, CR-V, Accord$561–$1,010, $615–$1,078, $710–$1,026 and $763–$1,187.
• Highlander, Sienna$685–$1,198 and $910–$1,486.
• Odyssey, Pilot, Ridgeline$1,013–$1,523, $1,067–$1,541 and $1,158–$1,562.
• What every range coversThe belt alone; the estimator says pulleys, tensioners and the water pump aren't included. Estimates last updated June 18, 2026.

Timing belt and water pump replacement cost: why do they go in together?

Because where the timing belt drives the water pump, the pump sits behind the same covers, held on by the same bolts, reachable only after the same few hours of work getting there.

A water pump is $22 to $123 at the counter across the six cars priced brand by brand below. Fitting one on its own costs most of what the entire timing belt job costs, because the access work is identical.

That's why doing the pump with the belt costs barely more than the belt alone: expect the pump's price in parts and little or no extra labor, since the covers are already off.

Decline the pump to save its price today, and if it starts leaking months later you pay the full labor bill a second time. This time you also throw away the belt you just bought.

The cheapest part of a timing belt job

The exception is an engine where the accessory belt drives the pump out in the open, which makes it a separate, much cheaper job with no reason to bundle it. Ask which type yours is, because a shop that can't answer that quickly isn't the shop for this work.

What does a timing belt kit cost for my car?

Seventeen cars, priced kit by kit: every brand RockAuto lists for that engine, one unit each, read September 15, 2026. There's no labor column, because we couldn't read the book time for this job on any of them; the hours we could read are under the cost box above.

Check the engine, not the badge, before you read a row. At least three of these models were also sold with a chain engine, with nothing to replace and nothing to pay: the 2.4L four in the 2008 Accord, the 2.0L four in the 2004 Civic Si, and the 3.6L six in the 2011 Outback.

Three cars are missing on purpose. The 2017 Ford Escape 2.5L and the 2014 Chevrolet Cruze 1.4L turbo run chains, so there's no belt job to price.

The 2018 Volvo XC90 has a belt but no kit: the catalog carries one bare belt for it and nothing else, and a row in a kit column would be comparing a different thing.

Five of the Hondas land on the same $46 to $302 because they're the same J35 V6 wearing different badges. The Pilot and the MDX start higher because their catalog pages don't list the cheapest brand, not because the part differs.

Six cars taken apart, brand by brand

The seventeen-car table above gives each car one range, cheapest brand to most expensive. This one does the opposite, and it's here because the range hides the argument: six cars taken apart, every brand and every price behind the figure, read from RockAuto on August 28, 2026, one unit each, before shipping and tax.

Where you buy moves the figure as much as which brand you pick: the AISIN water pump for the 2014 Odyssey is $68.79 here, and $134.99 at an AutoZone counter on September 1, 2026, or $171.99 with a longer warranty. Neither shop is overcharging, and the part is rarely what decides the bill; when it does, the counter you walk into decides it more than the badge on the box.

Treat them as a snapshot rather than a live price. What they are good for is the shape of the thing: how much room sits between the cheapest brand and the most expensive, and how small a share of the bill parts really are.

The 2015 WRX with the 2.0L engine is missing on purpose. It runs a chain, so there's no belt to price.

How those figures add up

Three of those cars aren't sold as kits at all, so the figure is one of each part added up at the cheapest brand available. Taking one of each through a single premium brand instead passes $300 on the Honda.

We couldn't confirm how many idler pulleys those engines take, so read $94 and $134 as a floor rather than an estimate. The two Hondas land on the same $94 from their own listings: the Pilot page doesn't carry the cheapest idler the Odyssey page does, so it starts sixty-four cents higher and rounds to the same figure.

The tensioner on its own

On Honda's 3.5-liter V6 the tensioner is two parts: a hydraulic adjuster, and the tensioner it pushes against the belt. The parts catalog files both under one name, so a price for "the tensioner" can mean either.

So ask which one a quote means, and whether the other is being replaced too. A tensioner line that names only one of them is a job left half done, and a kit that says it leaves out the hydraulic assembly has done exactly that.

Where the tensioner prices come from 4 notes

• Hydraulic adjusterListings that interchange with Honda 14520-RCA-A01, Honda's own part included ($249 on the Odyssey and Accord pages); SKF names its version “Hydraulic Adjuster Tensioner”. 7 listings on the Pilot, 8 on the Odyssey, 10 on the Accord.
• Tensioner, without the adjusterListings that interchange with Honda 14510-R9P-A01 or 14510-RCA-A01; Gates says its version “Does Not Include Cam. Tensioner Hydraulic Assembly”. Two listings on each car.
• Left out of both rowsListings that print no Honda number, so we couldn't say which part they are: 2 on the Pilot, 5 on the Odyssey, 9 on the Accord.
• ReadRockAuto, September 29, 2026, the Timing Belt Tensioner part type for each car's 3.5L V6.

Three traps in a parts listing

Price alone won't tell you what you're buying. On these pages the listing text does, and it's often one small line:

• The kit can cost less than the pieces.For the 2018 Odyssey, a Dayco kit holding the water pump, belt, hydraulic actuator, tensioner, idler, shim and bolt is $190.79. The cheapest pump, actuator and idler come to $68.95, and the only tensioner that year's page lists, a $143.79 Gates, takes the pieces past the kit before the belt is even counted.
• “Kit” isn't a promise.Gates sells a kit for that Odyssey at $144.99, and its own listing says “Does Not Include Cam. Tensioner Hydraulic Assembly”. Read the contents line; a listing that says nothing isn't a listing that includes everything.
• Look-alike parts differ by one line.For the 2015 Subaru, one brand sells a single-bearing idler at $13 and a double-bearing one at $13.52. For the 2014 Jetta, Continental's kits come with a plastic impeller at $274.79 or a metal one at $275.79, and Gates prices the same choice on the pump alone $51 apart.

Does my car have a timing belt or a chain?

It depends on the engine, not the badge. The same model can be sold with a belt on one engine and a chain on another, and a chain has no scheduled replacement at all.

Honda shows it most clearly: its 3.5-liter V6 has a belt, and the Odyssey and Pilot share it down to the part number, so a parts price for one is a parts price for the other. What changes between cars with the same engine is the labor, because reaching the belt isn't the same afternoon in every body.

The Civic is the opposite case. It was never sold with that V6, and whether it has a belt depends on which four-cylinder it has: in 2004 the 1.7-liter had a belt and the Si's 2.0-liter a chain.

By 2012 every Civic engine ran a chain, so the answer to what a Civic timing belt costs is usually that yours doesn't have one. Your book says which, and the badge never will.

The owner's manuals we opened for other makers point the same way: where one book covers several engines, its timing belt line is limited to the belt engine, and books for chain engines carry no belt line at all. We couldn't check Hyundai or Kia, so on those the manual is the only answer.

What the owner's manuals list 6 entries

• 2008 Honda Accord“Replace timing belt and inspect water pump (V6 engine only)”: the 2.4L four runs a chain.
• 2004 Toyota Sienna“Timing Belt Replace every 90,000 miles”.
• Toyota, 2008 to 2017The Camry, Corolla, RAV4, 4Runner, Tundra, Tacoma and Highlander guides we read carry no belt line in their schedules.
• 2011 Subaru“Camshaft drive belt [Except 3.6L, 2.5L Forester N/A]”: the 3.6L runs a chain.
• 2014 Chevrolet Cruze“1.8L Engine Only: Replace timing belt”: the 1.4L turbo runs a chain.
• 2017 Ford EscapeThe belt line names the 1.6L engine only; the 2.5L runs a chain.

Which Hondas share the V6 belt 2 entries

• 2014 Odyssey against 2012 PilotNineteen listings for the belt and the water pump; not one differs by a cent (RockAuto, August 28, 2026).
• 2004 Civic1.7L: timing belt, tensioner and belt kit listed, no chain parts. 2.0L Si: chain, guides, tensioner and chain kit, no belt.

What is a wet belt?

Some recent small engines (Ford's 1.0 EcoBoost among them, and several Stellantis PureTech 1.2 engines, sold under Peugeot and Citroën badges outside the US) use a belt that runs inside the engine, bathed in oil. It's called a belt-in-oil or wet belt design.

When a wet belt breaks down, the shed material can block the oil pick-up screen, which starves the engine of oil and turns a belt failure into a bearing failure.

Which of the three your engine uses changes what the job is:

If you have one, the oil specification and the belt interval are both hard limits. Our guides cover how a wet belt works, which cars have one and which oil it needs.

When is a timing belt due?

When your engine's own service book says. For the five cars below, the figures online run from 80,000 to 105,000 miles, and not one matched the carmaker's own book when we opened it.

Getting the timing belt interval wrong costs money in both directions:

• Too early and you've paid hundreds of dollars for a part that was fine, and bought yourself the same bill again later.
• Too late and, on an interference engine, you can be buying an engine instead of a belt.

None of those popular numbers is made up. Each one belongs to a different car, or a different engine, than the one in your driveway.

Each maker's book answers in its own way: Honda's newer books carry no belt mileage at all, because the car shows a code when the belt is due. Subaru's names two cars on one line, and Volkswagen prints a separate sheet for each engine, so the sheet itself answers the question.

What each service book says 5 entries

• 2004 Honda Odyssey105,000 miles or 7 years, whichever comes first; 60,000 miles if you drive regularly above 110°F or below −20°F. This is where the figure everyone repeats was born.
• 2014 and 2018 Honda OdysseyMaintenance code 4, “Replace timing belt and inspect water pump”, with no mileage: the car shows it when due. The same 60,000-mile footnote for heat and cold.
• 2015 SubaruOne line for the whole range, “Timing Belt (WRX/WRX STI)”, at 96,000 miles or 8 years. The 2015 WRX's 2.0L runs a chain, so in that year the line is about the STI's 2.5L turbo.
• 2014 Volkswagen JettaThe 2.0L TDI diesel sheet replaces the belt at 130,000 miles. The 2.0L MPI gasoline sheet checks it at 60,000 miles; if it isn't replaced then, it's checked every 20,000 miles until it is, and every 60,000 after that.
• 2012 Volkswagen Passat“Timing Belt: Replace (2.0L TDI only)”. The 2.5L and 3.6L gasoline engines on the same sheet run chains.

No belt mileage in the book

What all five books agree on

Two things about the timing belt interval hold true across all five books:

• The interval belongs to the engine, not the model. Two cars of the same year and badge can want different things.
• The mileage can come paired with a time limit, seven years in the 2004 Honda book and eight in the Subaru's. That's the half people forget.

That time limit is why a low-mileage car can be the more urgent case: the years can run out before the miles do. Our free timing belt interval calculator takes the figures off your manual and your dashboard and tells you which one runs out first.

The belt is rarely the only thing landing at that mileage. What else arrives with it, and what the whole year costs, is in the 100k mile maintenance cost breakdown.

Every number above is correct about some car, and that lesson is worth more than any single figure. Your only job is to find out whether it's correct about yours, and the book in your glove box is where that is written.

There's nothing to listen for while you wait, either. What people mistake for a timing belt symptom sets out what 4,315 federal complaints show, and the one noise that is worth stopping for.

What happens if a timing belt breaks?

It depends on the engine. In an interference engine, where the valves and pistons take turns in the same space, the pistons meet open valves at speed.

The damage is bent valves, damaged guides, sometimes a scored piston or a cracked head. We couldn't source a repair range we'd stand behind, but bent valves mean taking the cylinder head off, the same kind of job as a head gasket replacement, and on an old car that can be the end of the car.

In a non-interference engine, there's clearance: the belt breaks, the engine stops, and you pay for the tow and the belt job you were putting off. Annoying, not fatal.

Is my engine an interference engine?

Assume yes unless you've checked, because the cost of guessing wrong is an engine. In an interference engine, the valves and the pistons use the same space at different moments, and the timing belt is what keeps them taking turns.

We couldn't find a count of how many belt engines are interference designs that we'd stand behind. Whether yours is one changes the math completely: on an interference engine, the belt service is insurance against a head job, and skipping it to save money is a bet you only get to lose once.

Can you keep driving past the interval, or skip it on an old car?

You can drive, but you're driving on a part the carmaker no longer vouches for, and on an interference engine a snapped belt means taking the cylinder head off.

On an old car, set the belt job against what the car is worth. If a $450 to $1,562 job is more than the car, that's a decision about the car; if it isn't, the belt is the cheaper side of the bet.

What should you ask before agreeing to the quote?

Two parts do most of the arguing in a timing belt quote, and both spin on a sealed bearing that dries out with heat:

• The tensionerThe spring-loaded arm that keeps the belt tight.
• The idler pulleysThe small wheels the belt runs over on its way round.

Those two are why two fair quotes for the same car can be hundreds of dollars apart. One is quoting a belt.

The other is quoting the belt, the tensioner, the idler pulleys, the water pump, coolant and the front crank seal, done once, properly, which looks worse today and can cost less over five years.

Five questions, asked at the counter, will tell you more about a timing belt quote than any price comparison:

• Is this a kit or just the belt?You want the kit: belt, tensioner, idlers. If the estimate lists one line for "timing belt", ask what else is in it. A shop that can itemize the kit has priced the job; one that can't is quoting a part.
• Is the water pump belt-driven, and is it included?If it's belt-driven and not included, ask why not. A shop that knows the engine answers the first half straight away; there may be a good reason for the second, but you want to hear it.
• What brand of kit?The established belt makers, Gates, Continental/ContiTech, Aisin and INA, are all fine, as is the carmaker's own kit. Naming the brand is the answer; not knowing it means the kit was ordered by price. An unbranded kit on an interference engine isn't worth what it saves.
• Are the seals being checked?The crank seal is the ring that keeps oil in at the front of the engine. If it is leaking, it can contaminate a new belt within months. A shop that has looked will tell you whether it's dry; one that hasn't will say it's fine.
• Is coolant included?If the pump comes out, the system gets drained. A shop that has it right names the coolant type your manual calls for. See can you mix coolant colors before anyone tops it up with whatever is on the shelf.

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Common questions

Asked most often

How much does a timing belt replacement cost?

A timing belt replacement costs $450 to $785 on a small car, $561 to $1,187 on a midsize car or crossover and $685 to $1,562 on a minivan or SUV, in published shop estimates for the years that have a belt. Ask what the quote includes.

How often should a timing belt be replaced?

There's no single number, and that's the trap. We read the carmakers' own service books for five cars and got everything from no mileage at all to 130,000 miles, so look up your own engine rather than a range. Check the years as well as the miles, because some books pair the mileage with a time limit.

Should the water pump be replaced at the same time?

If it's belt-driven, yes. It sits behind the same covers, so fitting one later means paying the same labor twice and throwing away a new belt.

Will a broken timing belt ruin the engine?

On an interference engine the valves meet the pistons: bent valves, damaged guides, sometimes worse, and the repair means taking the cylinder head off. On a non-interference engine the car simply stops.

How do I know if my car has a belt or a chain?

Check the maintenance section of your owner's manual for a timing belt line. A line means a belt, even where it carries no mileage: newer Hondas list it as maintenance code 4. No entry points to a chain; a parts catalog for your engine will confirm it.

Prices are ranges compiled in August and September 2026 for the US market and vary by region, engine and shop rate. In the cost boxes and the seventeen-car table, prices from $10 up are rounded to the nearest dollar, so $14.13 reads as $14 and $14.52 as $15, and below $10 they're exact. Where a single listing is quoted, it's to the cent. This article is general information, not advice about your specific vehicle. See the disclaimer.