Blown Serpertine / Belt tensioner on Thanksgiving Eve.

Hi all,

For starters it could've been worse... much worse; and I'm thankful it wasn't. It all started when a wheezing sound was coming from somewhere. I though, one of the bearing must be going bad, so I decided to wait it out til the weekend. Yesterday the sound was so irritating I stopped at a supermarket to buy WD-40. I did and it worked, the sound became less annoying. Today, on the eve of Thanksgiving, I decided to run some errands early! As you can imagine, the roads were packed! I even got hit by some woman in a minivan at the supermarket. Managed to get everything needed, water, some condiments, wine, and vodka, scotch, and chivas.

On my way back home suddenly the battery check light went on the dash board, the steering stiffened, and a curve was approaching with a semi truck coming. on. Clearly I made it home. I popped the hood and there it was, the serpentine belt was off and the tensioner, the part that touches the belt was melted! Who knew that shit was plastic?! I tried to see if I could replace the belt myself, I've done work like that before on other cars but realized that I needed to support the engine to remove the engine mount support bracket, just to ultimately remove the belt and tensioner.

Hope Friday, Pep Boys is kind to me, but tomorrow I'll give thanks things were not worse and offer my prayers to those who do have worst than I.

Happy Thanksgiving... Things are gonna be great!

Is is possible to replace the belt tensioner without messing or removing the engine mount support bracket?

In order to give you the help you need, we need to know whats the year and engine size of your malibu...

I'm proud to say that I managed to replace the belt tensioner, the bearings just gave out. Luckily the belt was fine.

Don't know when you last replaced the belt, if ever, but don't be skimpy on this. They're not that expensive, and should be replaced every 100,000 kilometers (63,000 miles, I think).