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Doing some research on a belt I was looking at on Amazon. I suppose Amazon isn't just for cheap stuff.
Here's Pix's website.

Features

• Aramid cord offers high tensile strength, high resistance to shock loads and minimum elongation
• Specially designed bare fabric facilitates smooth clutching operation and high resistance to wear and tear
• Able to withstand high levels of reverse flexing
• Resistance to oil, heat and cracking
• Temperature range: -18°C to +80°C

I'm wondering if anyone else has tried Pix belts. If so, what was your experience?

I have used a few. Average quality. I think they are made in India.

Hammermechanicman said:

I have used a few. Average quality. I think they are made in India.

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Are there any quality US made brands?

Only complaint that I had about the PIX belts was that the sizes didn't match their posted specs. Sunbelt Outdoors used them and I had to throw out nearly 1000 usd worth because they were up to an inch short in 1/2" and over 2" short on some the 5/8 ones. Try putting one on when it is 2" short; so embarrassing when I tried while the customer waited. It was such a problem that I now refuse to order aftermarket belts; besides my current OEM distributor belts cost nearly the same now.

How I know they were short, I went brought myself a 170" v-belt measuring tool at nearly 200 usd to prove the point to Sunbelt and to make sure I wasn't crazy.

Now if you can find one in the right size they are very good belt as I had used them for 8 yrs before they start shipping incorrect sizes 2 yrs ago.

As for an US made brand that would be Gates and most of their belts are to specs but even they make a packaging error on occasion as I have got one incorrect belt from them too, probably was a new person on the assembly line as it was an A86 which should been 88" and the one in the package was 86". So it was an one off time.

Are these kevlar belts, any better than gates black belts?

We’ve tried them, but found that the angle was wrong most of the time, which resulted in premature failure. Now use 90% OEM belts, as most of our customers prefer a quality lasting job over price. Repeat business and reputation drives our growth.

PTmowerMech said:

Are these kevlar belts, any better than gates black belts?

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The thing about belts is there are so many different applications. For OPE the main ones are clutching and non-clutching. Some belts are designed to bend backwards around idlers. Some belts don't like that. There are many different widths and and angles. Way too many belt cross references spec belts that are close but not exact. Automotive type belts don't work in most OPE applications. Some belts are made for high torqe applications. Some for shock loads. Lots of folks don't know difference betwee. A -B-C-D VS. 2L 3L 4L 5L FHP belts. Unless you know exactly what aftermarket belt works i would stick to OEM.

PTmowerMech said:

Are these kevlar belts, any better than gates black belts?

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First Gates black are poly belt corded, and then there is the Gates green belts that are Kevlar (Aramid) corded. Two totally different belts

Hammermechanicman said:

The thing about belts is there are so many different applications. For OPE the main ones are clutching and non-clutching. Some belts are designed to bend backwards around idlers. Some belts don't like that. There are many different widths and and angles. Way too many belt cross references spec belts that are close but not exact. Automotive type belts don't work in most OPE applications. Some belts are made for high torqe applications. Some for shock loads. Lots of folks don't know difference betwee. A -B-C-D VS. 2L 3L 4L 5L FHP belts. Unless you know exactly what aftermarket belt works i would stick to OEM.

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Exactly. There many sites out there selling will fit belts that actually don't fit properly. Then us mechanics got to straight out the mess after a customer tries installing them and have major problems. So many new belt just gets trashed here it is a shame as the landfill keeps filling up with them.

And as said OEM do have so different applications that they did their research for and most these aftermarket guys are just guessing at what works.

Down here Pix belts are distributed by Jack Max who are the bottom end cheap imports wholesalers.
I did have an account with them but I no longer do as very few of their product lines where a direct replacement.
When I started belts were my biggest nightmare particularly as we measure the inside & you lot measure the outside.
As Hammer stated there is a lot of variation, particularly with the size of the kevlar chords & their placements.

Now I use Stens, Rotary, or Oregon belts and when I come across a size that my suppliers do not have the I buy a Gates blade runner lawn & garden belt ( numbers start with BR )
All of these are from the OEM Exact replacement series and not the general V belt series .
'Then when it comes to MTD vari drive belts, it is often original MTD belts only.
Usually you can not substitute a deck belt for a transmission belt & visa versa because the kevlar chords are different sizes in different positions , regardless of the actual belt dimensions.

Clutching belts ,as used on transmission & manual PTO must be wrapped because as the rubber gets hot, it gets soft & sticky.
Try this yourself when you get out of your truck, flip the hood and grab the belt , feel how sticky it is which is good on a water pump / alternator belt because you do not want it to slip .
However on the mower you do want the belt to slip when you are clutching or starting / stopping the blades so these belts need to be wrapped to hold the stickyness inside.
You can verify this by reaching up and grabbing the transmission belt when you have finished testing the next mower, it will be hot but not sticky.

Then you get to the wraping material.'
It can be cotton, Kevlar or pollyester and each one will act differently on the mower.
Also never ever trust the size written on either the belt and in particular the wrapper.
The belt factories supply the wholesaler with unbranded belts usually in boxes of 100.
The wholesaler then puts the lables on them and it is not uncommon to find one marked wrong.
The exception to this is MTD where the belt number is moulded into the belt .

My go to for checking belts is Gates and this is the web page I use Gates belt interchange catalogue.
You type the mower belt number in the lower window.
In this case I used 754-04118 which is the belt for the yardman I am still struggleing with
The result was 6777BR
If you click on the BR number
You bring up the Gates catalogue 6777 BR specification
And scrolling down will bring up the exact specifications

In this case it is an A 121 63/64" USA size with a 1 deg smaller V angle than the standard 40 deg
Most aftermarket belt suppliers will supply a 122"

If you fit a standard 40 deg belt, you need to run the belt a good 1/2 hour to bed it in to the pulleys

And to compound the problem with equipment that uses the belt for clutching is pulley wear. Whenever the belt is slacked to stop drive to wheels or blades there is a pulley spinning on the belt. After enough years you get a worn out pulley. Seen folks go through belts slipping and burning up when they need to change the engine pulley. Seen this a lot on them 20 year old AYP craftsman riders.

Wait a minute Bert don't give some idiot the idea of just grabbing the belt. There are some out there that would do it with the engine running.

Now in reference to Stens and Rotary OEM spec'd belts I have had problems with them with them being the wrong sizes too. I had huge argument with Stens last year after I brought four same OEM belts and all of them were 1.25" too long; just fell off the pulleys with deck engaged. As a Stens dealer I finally got them to pick up the belts so their techs could check them. A couple weeks later I get an email stating they were crediting my credit card for the belts and shipping charges. It hard to trust Stens if on the very first belt order they screw up.

Hammer actually all pulleys wear overtime. It just like the printers with stainless steel paper guides that I once repaired. I was having to replace the guides because the paper worn through them. Plus often the stamp pulleys actually flex open with belt tension too which why machine pulleys are better if they can be found in right specs.

But in general everything wears but getting that through to an user sometimes seems impossible.

Hey star tech. Who did you fix printers for and what brand?

Primary the brands were Okidata, Epson, Panasonic, HP, Canon, and Printronix for 16 yrs but was before 2006. The last company was for Standard Register out of Dayton, OH as Senior Customer Engineer covering counties in North Alabama and south Central Tennessee. Lots of windshield time. I don't miss all that driving either. Work for myself now. Now most of the printers are just throwaway except the larger commercial units.

I worked for Xerox for 40 years. For the last 20 of it worked on the big stuff (1,000,000 + pages a month). I am very familar with Standard Register. I serviced out of Dayton. Got tired of the 60 hour weeks and 100 mile callouts. Retired and took my mower business from part time to full time.

I had worked my are down to under 40 hrs a week but that driving across the state every day was a still a little much. At first when I hired in '85, it simple putting out fires caused the Burroughs financial equipment being so poorly maintained and I was putting in nearly 60+ weeks at first myself. Strange they just throw me to wolves at first then after two years finally sent to some their training schools but of course by then I did need to go but they insisted anyways. It was train yourself as you went but at I had the service manuals to read at night.

At the end they were going through that corporate downsizing faze in the '90's and I had area manager that apparently just hated me as I could get things done by going over his head. I just didn't have the time play around for several days for him to decide if he going to do anything. He tried moving me to Birmingham. AL knowing full well I got sick everytime I spent two days down there and he wouldn't tell me of the Chattanooga, TN opening. Oh well whoever took over had to service the area either out of Birmingham, Nashville, or Chattanooga. I actually got along with Dick Fish the company president at the time. He even called me a few times on major projects in my area.

Then I went back to working on copiers but that again another nightmare situation as the previous tech I replaced was a screw hoarder and lazy otherwise. As I got the area under control the company got to where they weren't paying Toshiba on time so they were cutting them off and weren't sending the parts that I needed. Finally I just walked off one day.

I feel... felt? Your pain. Xerox outsourced the parts system to Flextronics so between poor supply chain and FedEx losing packages i got tired of telling customers paying somewhere around $1000 a day on their lease that the part is backordered or FedEx lost it. Fixing lawn mowers is a whole lot less stressful and easier than a million dollar digital color press. No guaranteed 2 hour onsite response times or guaranteed time to repair.

Definitely easier most days. It is those ATVs I work on that is a pain due to compactness.

Used to work in a coal fired power plant and saw this a lot. Dust and load, 24/7 operation and the pulleys wear out, belt runs on the bottom instead of the sides. Lose about 60% of the traction. Some pulleys can be re-machined, probably cheaper to replace on mowers.

They make plastic gauges to test pulleys and sheaves for wear. Anytime you see the bottom of a pulley or sheave as shiny as the sides it means it is bottomed out in the V groove and needs to be replaced.
I come from a commercial environment that use a lot of cast iron sheaves and if they were shiny in the bottom of the groove they had to be changed.