Why have cars moved to a timing chain

Question

The old Corollas in the 70s and 80s had timing chains. In the 90s, Honda, Toyota, and even Nissan started making belt-driven cranks instead of chains. Now they are back to timing chains. What happened?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

People complained about the costs of regularly scheduled timing belt service and the catastrophic effects of being ignorant to it. Manufacturers turned to timing chains to allay those fears and reduce ownership costs.