Aux belt issues

[petesimcock]

Hey guys. Aux belt went on my 05 vRS the other night. Got a new belt and fitted it yesterday but come to the car today, drove for a while and noticed my battery light on again. Looked under the bonnet and lo and behold the belt is off again.

There's been a squeaking noise coming from one of the tensioners or pulleys recently but everything looked straight when I fitted the new belt. Also for what it's worth kwik fit said all the pulleys were fine and the tensioners also. They did manage to order in 2 belts both were the wrong length so I took the car home and fitted one from a motor factors.

Anybody got any ideas?

Happy new year!!!

[rover220]

You trust the mechanical ability of a kwikfit fitter?

Must have play in a bearing/pulley I reckon.

[petesimcock]

No, I don't. Hence why I didn't let them fit the new belt.

Anybody got any ideas which pulley is most likely to have given way?

[hutchysrs50]

Alternator or the tensioner?

Could be any though.

[trundlenut]

alternator pulley is knackered, may have taken out the tensioner in the process.

[petesimcock]

The tensioner certainly felt to be working when we fitted the new belt. Definately working although the belt wasn't mega tight. But it wasn't noticeably loose. Gonna have a ring around some places tomorrow and see who can do it for me

[Coffin Dodger]

Mine did this a couple of weeks ago, didn't have time to look at it myself due to work so, got the garage to look at it. Turned out to be the tensioner was the fault. 'Cos it had gone, it caused the belt to be thrown off. New tensioner and belt fitted, problem solved.

[Oli3000]

New tensioner is about £40 from TPS. It is a 20 minute job to do at home. I would fully recommend doing it yourself if you fancy it!

Good guide here:

http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=313104

It really is easy - did mine in the summer as mine was noisy.

[petesimcock]

I will have a try at doing it myself tomorrow if I can find somewhere to get the part. But I have to go to work tomorrow night and these 'really easy' jobs have a habit of taking a lot longer than expected...:/

[trundlenut]

The tensioner is easy to do, once you lock it back there are only three bolts.

But, if the tensioner is goosed it is probably the alternator pulley that is the cause, it won't necessarily have completely seized in order to kill the tensioner. Changing the pulley means removing the alternator from the car and you need the special tool to remove the pulley, a new pulley is only 20 quid ish though.

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[petesimcock]

My relatively well trusted local garage has diagnosed a dead alternator. something to do with something being bent. judging how by it had chewed up the belt i fitted the other day this sounds about right. I'm expecting the bill to push £220 :/

This is the latest in a long line of medium to high cost faults on my car spanning the last year. its getting close to 180k miles and I'm starting to think I should chop it in and get something newer :/