belt sound, followed by electric problems

[marcc]

BIG relief! thanks.

[DavidPeab]

So, how'd it work out?

[marcc]

the guy i know who works out of his garage couldn't get to it for a couple of days (that's what happens, i guess with dudes working from home), wound up taking it to a shop. the belt turned out to be fine, but the tensioner fell off, or mostly so. he said there was a bolt left or something.

cost: $241. that sound fair? this morning (it was about 45 degrees) the belt squealed a second at start up, i may take it to the shop for them to do a cold start so they can see themselves.

[cardoc]

Originally Posted by marcc

the guy i know who works out of his garage couldn't get to it for a couple of days (that's what happens, i guess with dudes working from home), wound up taking it to a shop. the belt turned out to be fine, but the tensioner fell off, or mostly so. he said there was a bolt left or something.

cost: $241. that sound fair? this morning (it was about 45 degrees) the belt squealed a second at start up, i may take it to the shop for them to do a cold start so they can see themselves.

It was probably just the bearing came apart and the pulley fell out. Should have just been a pulley replacement. Both the idler and tensioner pulleys are the same part number. The tensioner bracket/tensioner would have had to break the spring.

[rasterman]

If a tensioner broke and left a chunk behind I could see that taking a couple of hours to deal with. Does not sound like an unreasonable retail price to pay for the work involved.

I would not be too concerned with a quick squeak or two as the new belt will need a little time to stretch and settle, but keep your eye on this as it should not continue past the first few drive cycles.

There is the possibility that the broken tensioner & belt wear were just consequences of something else gone wrong. If one of the accessories or idler pulleys is having a problem, it could be putting too much drag on the rest of the system and causing this premature wear.

[1 Lucky Texan]

could be the idler bearing.

or did I miss that both were replaced?

[marcc]

it's interesting: the guy i spoke to on the phone said, in effect, "the tensioner broke off, we had to replace that. the belt was good and we re-used it." he's one of the owners, and a mechanic himself i think.

the invoice said: a/c compressor drive belt tensioner/idler - r,r, l.l. bean edition, r vdc limited h6. that was $152.20, plus $90 labor. they are good guys, have done a lot of work on our other family cars. i feel a little guilt in taking some of the cars to the work-from-home guy.

[tdelker]

This is a common issue for the H6 of that vintage.

[DavidPeab]

cost: $241. that sound fair?

That sounds about right. Or you could do what I do sometimes as an amateur shade tree mechanic: Bust up your knuckles, go back to get the correct part, buy a new tool you are only going to use a few times, screw up the job after wasting a weekend, and then pay someone else a bit more than it would have costs for them to fix the problem you made worse instead of just letting them do their job in the first place. lol It rarely happens, but I have two other cars to drive while my Subie "heals."

[marcc]

i have a desire to learn some basic car repair skills, but don't have much of a foundation of knowledge in it. some of the "easy" things people talk about here, when i read the description, i get totally lost. plus, no good place to work (no garage, driveway in on a slope), some scattered tools (never seems to be the right one). i need to take a class at tech or something, but never sign up.