Who marks pulleys like this?
 

So in my ongoing search for oil leaks I finally got around to getting the timing belt off along with the crank pulley. Look at how someone marked this pulley. They put a weld bead right between the teeth! It was putting a noticeable wear mark on the belt. I ground it down with a dremel bit and plan to sandpaper it some tomorrow.

curious how many miles you had on the timing belt when you discovered this?

The car had its 105k mile service done at the dealer but they couldn't verify that the belt was changed then. They claim it was too long ago and their records were purged. Right now its at 148k miles so maybe 43k?

Of course I agree with you- its crazy to place something like this into service. Thankfully, it seems your not much worse for the wear- cogs on the belt are missing a small chunk - but not likely affecting the overall durability or performance of the belt.

Grinding off that weld probably wont hurt anything, assuming it is a misplaced blob, and not something that holds the cog onto an inner part of the assembly. Even if it was, I suspect it should have been smoothed out.