Was at the dealer recently for an oil change and they said I needed to change the drive belt tensioner because it's starting to make noises and starting to fail. I haven't heard any loud squealing noises or anything of that sort lately, just maybe some very mild slight rumbling noises at times from the engine, which I just attribute to the age of the car. I have a 07 TL type S with 114,000 miles on it.

Is this enough to warrant a new drive belt tensioner? Anyone else have this problem?

 

IMO they are looking for more $$. If you haven't noticed a big noise difference, then the severity of the damage is probably not great. You probably have many months of the noise increasing before it catastrophically fails (bearing failure usually doesn't happen overnight). In that case the pulley will fail and you may lose the drive belt. At that point...the consequence of failure is losing your power steering, aux. power (alternator) and your A/C.

In my opinion, you can make it a while longer until the tensioner is at risk for failure...going off your statements. Replace when noise becomes audible in the cabin.

 

Thanks for your input hrod 26. Much appreciated. I did have my alternator replaced recently. I brought my car in because the battery, airbag, abs lights were going on an off. They said it was due to the alternator starting to fail. I need to start reading this forum a lot more and asking more questions. Thanks again.

 

I have a bearing or something making noise around my belt area. I can hear it at all times with the car on. Car is an 07 TL with 93k. Maybe its my drive belt tensioner... i got AM warranty. I need to take it in

 

Change it. If it wasn't changed when you did the timing belt(assuming you did that), then get it changed. Buddy of mine didn't change his when he did his timing belt, eventually the tensioner failed and caused his timing belt to snap. You don't want that headache, trust me.

 

OP was talking about the drive belt tensioner...different from timing belt tensioner pulleys. I agree the TB tensioner pulleys should be changed when the TB is changed. I actually had the TB tensioner pulley fail at 65k miles and almost caused failure of TB. Luckily the belt was still intact when I changed it out...was in the process of shredding though. There was an audible noise near the drive belt tensioner when this happened. Best way to differentiate b/w drive belt tensioner and TB tensioner issues is to remove drive belt and run engine. If noise goes away...it's somewhere on the drivebelt system. If noise is still there...check the TB pulleys!