New Serpentine Belt

[rmergen]

Good morning everyone – I drive a 2005 Honda Accord SE v4 with 96K miles on it. About a month ago I noticed some noise coming from the accessory area under the hood. I checked it out and noticed that the automatic tensioner was not very solid; it was jumping around a little so I added decided to replace the tensioner (with pulley) along with the belt which was showing signs of wear. Boy was that pulley in bad shape. Lots of movement and the bearing sounded terrible. I purchased the new parts from the Honda dealer and knocked it out over this past weekend. The repair went fine without any issues during installation other than realizing that I couldn’t fit my breaker bar to release the tension – it was pretty crammed in there so I had to rent a belt removal tool (made the job so much easier).

I finished up double checking the belt’s alignment and tension and then took it for a test drive back to the auto parts store to return the serpentine belt removal tool I rented and then proceeded home – about a 10 mile drive round trip. I got home and checked my work again and noticed that the belt did not look new anymore. The flat side was rusty and pretty filthy. I looked over all the pulleys and everything is quiet and functioning normally (to my eyes and ears anyway). The only other reverse pulley besides the new tensioner is the water pump and it seems to be fine. The belt does not seem to be rubbing anywhere; in fact, its quieter than ever!

So my question is this – on your experience, do dirty pulley’s (I did not clean them before putting on the new belt) muck up a new belt this quickly or could I have an issue with an accessory (water pump comes to mind because it’s the only other reverse pulley)?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Rob

Topic

[EricTheCarGuy]

To be honest what you describe is normal in my experience and I believe it comes from the AC compressor clutch but don’t hold me to that. If you don’t have any noise then I would say you should be fine and you don’t need to worry about it, my Element does the same thing with the same engine and it’s never caused any problems.

[Trcustoms719]

+1 on erics post.
Don’t fix what ain’t broke.

[kzkevin]

Im not really sure. But I replaced mines serpentine belt for my 2003 accord v4 at 59000 miles due to the crank pulley wobbling and put in a new belt and pulley from honda. I keep the tensioner and pulley clean on my cars.

[rmergen]

Thanks for the reassurance guys. I appreciate it.

[Author]

Replies