actually, I cut my old timing belt off the engine when I replaced it.. there was no steel belts.. just fabric and rubber.

And I have seen some really bad instances of valves meeting pistons. A fiat I bought for next to nothing had reduced it's engine to a paperweight as the tensioner broke while the previous owner pulled into his driveway. two of the valves snapped their heads off.. one was embedded into the head after being pounded into it by the piston (which also had a hole in it) and the other was rattling free in the cylinder, after gouging a deep gash into the side.. way beyond anything you could machine out.

 

I've got about 86,000kms on this one & it looks fine: no cracks at all.

I'll be changing it soon though as here they recommend that it be changed every 80,000kms.

I don't know why yours was rooted after only 60,000kms... maybe it's because of the climate.

 

theres some kind of metal in their. maybe its copper? there was a part on my old belt where the rubber had worn away on the side and i could see it.

 

Maybe I had a bad belt.



I changed it at the hyundai shop. 4 belts with a pump took about 3 hours, but they also changed me valve cover gasket and rear hub.


There were also cracks on teeth.


In Korea and Europe Hyundai recommend 60K kms (37K miles).
Our climat is not too agressive. Altough last winter had some very cold days, up to -27 C.