ziboy

Hi, I need your opinion about what to do. My car has 65k miles and I changed the belt last month for the same reason I have today.

Situation:

When the car is cold, I can hear a squeeck.... squeeck.....squeeck... the noise until the belt are probably hot and doesn't slip anymore and run like a charm. The car wasn't making any noise until last week. (3 weeks old belt)


Inspected:

-Inspected the bearing on the p/s pulley the bender, and the alternator. They are all fine. No shaft play and they are still full of grease inside and make no noise at all.

crank is fine a/c i fine too.

-I cleaned all pulleys

-removed and cleaned the belt

-Used the pry bar to see if the bender was working properly

-I have about 1/4 inch of play on the belt so it's not loose at all

So.... since I didn't found the problem, I started the car, same noise. same problem, but I decided to put some silicone grease for rubber and the noise desapeared until this morning only when it's cold again.

So, at the end, i'm here right now stuck between two choices

1. Automatic bender
2. or the brand new belt is already broken



Since the belt has some sillicone grease, I don't find this kind of noise normal. You never need to put something on the belt at first....


Thank you!

main70072

What kind of belt did you replace with? I'm not sure if Goodyear Gatorback make belts for this car, but if they do I would highly recommend getting one. From what you are describing sounds to be like a bad automatic tensioner.

ziboy

Dayco belt.

main70072

Like I said, it could be your tensioner going bad... if all other pulleys checked out to be fine and nothing is out of align. If you want to, you could get the Gatorback and try it out and see if it makes a difference. It worked for me on our truck that had a bad tensioner design that would squeak with every belt.

ziboy

Dayco is the only brand avalaible in my city. Maybe I can find a store on internet but this is not normal if I need to find a specific belt for my problem.

ziboy

I'll try to investigate more on the belt tensionner. Maybe its missing some grease..

main70072

You are right, it is not normal to find a specific belt for your problem. I am only suggesting a quiet belt that is known to fix squeaky problems and would possibly fix your problem if the Dayco belt is indeed defective. Auto tensioner often time goes bad, and I don't think it's "missing some grease."

ziboy

I don't think too. lol It's just hard to believe after 60k miles!

ziboy

After taking a look at this, my tensionner is at the right place SOOOOOOOO it's the belt.

Dayco sucks.

ziboy

I ordered the new belt. It's still a Dayco since it's still under the 30 days warranty.

News to come next week-end.

Simba91102

I'm inclined to think that it's the tensioner too. I've never read of any noise problems with the belt. And just because the tensioner appears to be where it's supposed to be, that doesn't mean it can't be noisy. Remember why the belt was changed in the first place (65K is way early, and it sounds like it was the tensioner all along). The original problem still exists, so it seems to me that continuing to replace the belt is ignoring where the real problem probably is. These serpentine belts just don't tend to squeel.

Simba91102

The Dayco belt is a fine replacement, but for those who might want to use something else, Rockauto.com offers belts from Dayco, Gates, the Goodyear Gatorback, and AC/Delco. Oh, what's a "bender"?

ziboy

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It squeel only when the engine is cold. If the tensionner was bad, it would squeel all day long no ?
I'm changing the belt another time. It's still under warranty anyway, we had very bad cold weather last week and the noise started that same week too.
about -30 to -35 °C.
Also,
I had a dicussion with the acura dealer yesterday and they told the belt tensionner are not common to break at my millage. It's not a cheap fix.

Ps: Bender was not the properly word to use. I mean tensionner. (sorry I speak french)

ziboy

The sound is like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIzOwN_P95E

main70072

Not really, our truck did the same and only made noises on cold start ups and during damp/humid weather conditions. It was found out to be a bad design that led to early failure of the tensioner. A cheap and quick fix was to put on a Gatorback belt that many owners have had success with, but that solution was for that specific model truck. As such, that was why I recommended that belt to you.

I do agree that at such a mileage that it is rare for the tensioner to go bad, but you never know. Again, this was assuming that you got every other bearings/pulleys checked out to be fine and that all accessories are well and aligned.

808havok_tsx

i had a similar problem. i know this sounds funny but in "cold" weather at about 60f degrees, as well as humid on startup my car made a similar noise. after 5 minutes of driving, noise went away. it happened for 3 days straight where the weather was the same - 60f degrees and humid.

weather has been upper 60's in the morning but not humid the past month... no noise whatsoever.

sounds like your weather is freezing... weather could be playing a factor as well in your case.

fyi - i have UR full pulley set with gates belt...

acutech

Nice video. I didn't see what year your TSX is. It almost looks like your crank pulley, which is also a harmonic balancer, is wobbling slightly. There is a rubber dampener in the center of the pulley, and it can deteriorate. Not common , but possible. Look at it very closely. You can use a long screwdriver as a stethescope, to find the specific location of the noise. Does the noise change with the A/C on? Watch the tensioner pulley, does it seem to vibrate slightly, more so with the A/C on? This caused by the tensioner, not the pulley itself.

Simba91102

One reason could be that once the belt has a chance to warm up (as it will from the friction that's inherent in what it does), it has enough stretch (it "grows") to relieve some of the tension on the tensioner, which will quiet it down. And I agree that a tensioner failure at that mileage is unusual (about as unusual as a belt failure at that mileage would be my guess)

ziboy

So!!!! goood news!

it was the belt. With the new one, there's no more noise. Much more better! I'm happy now.... except my radio is now all blacked out, clock and climate control. I know there's a recall. I did it 7000km ago..... but the problem is back I don't know WHY.

Simba91102

Thanks for the update; glad it worked out for you.