Squeaking serpentine belt at idle

[pberryny]

I have a 96 SL1 with 153K miles. Strange problem. The serpentine belt has a loud squeak when power accessories are on. For instance, if I turn on the rear defroster it will squeak. If the lights are on with the fan and radio it will sometimes squeak. To make it stop I selectivly turn off accessories until it stops. It only happens at idle. Once at speed I can have everything on. I tried a new belt but the quiet time only lasted about a week. The alternator was replaced 3 years ago. Belt tensioner seems good with the belt good and tight. It seems to be an electrical load problem. Voltage regulator? Any ideas or anyone had a similar problem? Thanks.

[HAWG]

did you check the idler pulley?

[pberryny]

After doing some more research I diagnosed the problem as a bad belt tensioner. Bought a new assembly from Autozone ($59.00) and installed it. Car is nice and quiet now.

If you plan on replacing the belt tensioner make sure you are patient and give yourself about 2 hours. It's very tight in there. I found another web site that recommended moving the power steering pump out of the way to give yourself more room. Highly recommend doing this. Remove the serpentine belt. Then move the power steering pump out of the way. There are 3 bolts holding the power steering pump to the engine. For one of the bolts you have to go through the slots in the power steering pump pulley. The bolts, like the ones on the belt tensioner, are 10MM. After moving the power steering pump you can get to the top bolt of the belt tensioner with a 10MM 6 point socket. To get to the bottom bolt of the belt tensioner jack the car up and remove the front passenger side wheel. Remove the left plastic splash guard to get a good view of the bottom bolt.

There are other web sites that have more detailed instructions on how to do this. I'm just giving an overview. Good luck.

[PlayStation3]

how did it take you 2 hours to replace the tensioner. it took me half a hour to change the tensioner, idler pully and a new serpretian belt. and that was the first time i did it.

[samprix]

Not everyone works at the same speed. What difference does it make how long it takes someone to do a job when they are working on their own vehicle? I don't think we should be "ragging" on someone who was trying to post information that might help others.

[PlayStation3]

i'm not i'm jsut saying you don't need to set aside 2 hours,

[Godzilla.vs.Jeep]

pberry - THANKS for the informative short story on replacing this component!! - the Saturn is my wife's car, and I hate working in those tight little spaces on this engine -- But with this info in hand I got the job done in about 90 minutes this evening, having to get the part and all. So now she doesn't have to borrow mine to get to work tomorrow