yakko, chui or anyone who could help

[Pikon]

I've asked this in the newbie zone but the responses haven't answered my question. What happens if a faulty belt tensioner is not replaced? Mine's bad but my dealer won't replace until they could duplicate the noise. Just want to know what the consequences are if it's not replaced when it's malfunctioning? Thanks for any input.

[yakkosmurf]

The problem with the belt tensioner is a bearing failure. There's no immediate action that probably needs to be taken looking at the past failure history of the part. The immediate consequences would be some squeaking, and it will take more torque to turn it. However, the amount of extra torque needed to turn it will be minimal and of no concern. Mainly, you're faced with putting up with the noise at first. If the problem worsens, then in theory, the bearing could fail completely. This could result in the pully no longer spinning, or in it breaking off (extreme case). I doubt either of those things are going to happen. If they won't fix it now, just give it a little time to worsen. As it does, the noise will get louder. Then you can get it fixed. It won't hurt anything in the meantime.

[Jesse IL]

My dealer had the same problem. The easiest way to hear the noise is insist the service tech ride with you in the car. Drive to the middle of an empty parking lot and sit INSIDE the car at idle. They will hear it real quick.

My belt tensioner is going out again. This time I am going to insist to have the failed part so I can inspect the failed bearing. I was a bearing engineer and have inspected hundreds of failed bearings. We had a wierd tensioner pulley problem with Chrysler that we could never figure out. For apparently no reason, the raceways of the bearings would just flake and cause a noise just like what we hear. Location of the belt on the pulley seemed to have no effect and the bearings were from several different plants and were made at cpmpletely different times. We even had our metalurgist section the raceways and look at the microstructure of the steel where the failuires were occuring. Nothing. The bearing will make that noise for probably a long time until the cage finally fails and then the tensioner would lose all its support and collapse. Then your car would no longer want to go anywhere.