DefofChaos

I have just purchased from a friend a 96 Acura TL 2.5L for fairly cheap. It has few problems, but for the most part drives great, other then the transmission slipping if I floor the car.

But I was going to replace all 3 belts on the car tommorow as the weather has finally gotten warm enough to do it, but for the past 2-3 days a funny sound is coming from my car.

It sounds exactly like this car I found on YouTube.

Before even find narrowed down the sound to come close from my AC Compressor, so tommorow I plan to just cut that belt and run the car and finally figure out if I am correct or not.

My question is, since the AC Compressor Belt runs through an Idler Puller is it okay that I just leave the belt off and run with no A/C as I don't have the funds to by a new clutch/bearing for the A/C? And does the Idler Pulley attach to anything else or is it specifically only for the A/C Compressor?

Thanks advance for all your help.

P.S. I am glad I am not the only person who has that annoying sound when the door unlocks eletrically.

main70072

Yes, you can leave the A/C belt left off and drive with no A/C.

DefofChaos

Thanks for the reply, but I actually figured it out, the night of the post while driving home from work the noise got much worse and I pulled over and the belt was smoking hot. I cut the belt off and found that the idler pulley would no longer spin. The car sounds perfect now and only 90 miles short of 250k on the original engine and transmission.

main70072

Yeah, it seems to be a very common problem as the car ages.

DefofChaos

I was definitely in luck that the belt didn't snap off, unlike the poor guy in thread https://acurazine.com/forums/1g-tl-1996-1998-101/catastophic-belt-failure-due-locked-idler-pulley-798622/