Roller Bearing - BROKE! - Anyone else have this happen?

Over the past week I have noticed a slight squeaking sound when I take off from a dead stop then it would go away. So today I finally had time to diagnose the problem and found the roller bearing on the timing belt had broke off its post and fell, which wedged itself down by the crank shaft pulley. This was replaced 40K miles ago when the timing belt service was done.

Anyone ever experience this?

On a side note, I am very impressed at how tough the actual timing belt is because it has a bad, bad streak marred into it but never shredded or broke and I drove roughly a 1000K miles this past week.

Does sound like whoever did the T/B used cheap Chinesium parts or didn't change all the parts that should have been changed when the T/B was changed. T/Bs rarely fail. What does fail is usually the idler roller (in your case), the tensioner roller or the water pump.

When I did my T/B at 88K miles, my OEM parts looked like the could have gone to 150K miles easily.

I really hope thats the not the case. I had the first timing belt service done late since all of my driving is constant highway and the OEM parts looked like they had no miles. The timing belt kit came from a vendor supported by this website and was performed by a guru. The roller was replaced because I have the old one. So, either the nut wasn't tightened enough or the roller bearing seized. I can't tell, but from what I see right now it looks like the stud is snapped off. Hope there is enough off the stud to get it out.

While the first suspicion always is either non-replacement of components or Chinese junk, there is also the possibility that the stud was either overstressed and failed, or that it was perhaps weak from the start.

Sometimes things just happen. Of course there's a reason, but ofttimes not a readily discoverable reason.

As others have said, my experience with my '06 has been much the same as theirs... At 96k miles I changed out the old components with new. I was surprised to find the old components almost as clean as the day they were new with no obvious signs of wear at all. I believe the old components would have easily gone another 96k miles, but I didn't wish to take that chance.

Yes, even good parts can fail unexpectedly.
I would love to know the markings on the failed roller.

Good job following up on the noise change. I wish everyone would do this.
It saved you at least $1500.

Quick update! The car is fixed and back on the road. I will post pictures shortly. The stud for the roller bearing sheared off flush with the block and dropped the roller bearing straight down against the case and crank pulley (belt side).

Car runs great...but it sure would have been nice if the squeak/squeal that I went searching for was fixed. Dang it! Guess more investigation work is needed...

I had one do the same thing.
Expensive.
Aggravating.
We did find that the Injection pump was not functioning normally after the repair - perhaps it was loading the belt beyond design?
No other possible cause was identified.