Belt Inspection

It's a cool morning you fire up your car, or truck, or mini van, suv !!!Whatever...... Where is that sound again, give it a rev up....Hum! it's gone, maybe not. This can be the life of a belt !!!! Is it noisy or not ? Under the hood of today's vehicles running just about everything is a belt (Serpentine or Multi grove, v-belt , timing belt , But rest assured it a belt of some kind. These belts are routed through pulley's, idler's, tension or tensioner's and running power steering, water pumps, A/C, air pumps etc. There is so much running from a single belt that the wear factor is very high. Doing a proper belt inspection is very IMPORTANT to your engine !!! Timing belt's can snap in half or just blow apart, sending the engine's valves in a dangerous direction. Now you might be lucky if you don't have an interference engine, But if you do! the valve or valve's are going to get bent out of shape, and it's off with the head or worse. Timing belt's should never be run more than 100,000 km after that the life of the belt is anyone's guess. A serpentine or multi-groove belt won't produce that kind of damage, but can or will leave you on the roadside. Inspection of the serp belt is easy.....as the routing of the belt is seen under the hood on a diagram. Check the groove side of belt for cracks, if you see many cracks in a 1 to 2 inch lenght of the belt change it. Inspect the idler and tension pulley or pulley's , worn bearings will fail in time and be very noisy at the least. Have your mechanic change it OR do it yourself!!! This is very important to the engine as far as the cooling system. Some engine's run the water pump with the timing belt or the serp belt........ Getting hot is never good. The days of the v-belt are going going
gone very soon . A regular inspection under the hood will be a sure way to avoid costly expenses.
So go ahead and have a look at that noise !!!You will be glad you did!