1st Gen R53 Cooper S Serpentine Belt on Drugs

Ok, maybe not exactly on drugs, but at least crazy!

This is a Gates belt that died on the track after maybe 8K miles and 1.5 yrs, since this is my daily driver, so track time is relatively rare. Anyway, it was replaced under warranty by my local CarQuest store with no problems and I am hoping to get better service out of this new one.

I was fortunate enough to have a spare with me when the 'old' one died and did not miss a session, otherwise it would have been a really bad day.

Since I have never had a belt expire on me at all before this incident, I was wondering if this is the normal way they go or is this 'special'?

Take a look............


A word to the wise on new belts:
Since the serpentine belt contains rubber, it has a shelf life. The counter guy brought me out a replacement that was old, dusty, and had a faded pkg/holder around the belt. I refused it and came back the next day for a new one. Rubber gets hard, less sticky, and more prone to cracks and failure as it get old, just like tires. Make sure your replacement is a new belt.

BTW, my belt was inspected just the day before the death. It had no cracks, no chunks missing or anything. No obvious slipping, no squealing, nothing. It had normal signs of light wear, that's it. So, go check your belts, cause you never know.

 

FUEGO,
I thought Gates made Napa, so they the same exact thing. BTW, this is a Carquest K060535 branded belt, made by Gates as stated on the back of the pkg. I do recall that thread before the cyber space incident and have always though of NAPA and Gate interchangeably as far as Serpentine belts are concerned.

So, in your experience, just go to the Napa store and get their version of the 060535 ?

 

Yes, I will definitely give everything a good look over when I put this new belt on. At the moment I am still running my spare which was hastily installed at the track. It is my OEM JCW belt, as it is 4yrs old now I really should replace my spare.

 

Please share your experience here FUEGO.

 

I will be getting in to this today. Thanks for the tips Eric, very timely and much appreciated.

 

1. As inspected the day before it died, my belt tensioner had half a hole showing, and had minimal signs of slight wear.
2. Spare JCW belt off today and a good chance to inspect everything:
- tensioner shock is dry and appears normal
- idler pulley spins smooth and freely
- tensioner pulley spins smooth and freely
- everything seems to be perfectly aligned
3. I am still back to a 'belt on drugs'

The new Carquest /Gates belt is installed and we will see what we get out of it, but I damn sure aint gonna baby it.

 

I did give the crank pulley a look over as well and it looked fine, but all of this inspection was done with the naked eye, and I don't have caliper or special alignment eyes. The crank pulley however, was not as freely spinning as the others. :wink5:

So, please do tell your story.

What were your symptoms? Did you get into some sort of pattern of 5 DEs to kill the belt, or maybe fine for all street driving and then dead belt on the first track session?

Which pulley was failing for you? How did you determine which one it was? Maybe it was your crank dampener going bad and had some cracks upon close inspection?

Yeah, I am asking....How do you know that?

 

OK got it and thanks. Something for me to keep an eye on. And no problem, I don't want to talk about crank pulleys either. After all, this thread is about serpentine belts anyway!

Thanks again for sharing that experience.

 

Yes, I did, but failed to mention it, oops.

It feels smooth, but not exactly spinning freely, I mean it aint no Rotrex.

But, yeah the SC is fine.

 

OK then, maybe I will soon have an excuse to go and get that ATI Super Damper I have had my eye on for a while.

Thanks for the input.