[My326]

So, my newly purchased SRT8 (no mods, not even tint yet) keeps eating serpentine belts. First replaced at 40+ miles, second (this time belt and tensioning pulley) replaced at 193 miles, the day after we I bought it.

1030 miles, coming home this evening, a bit over the speed limit it went again. Heard something banging and tinging around and thought the sound odd. Then flipped my s**t as I tried to change lanes at 90+ and found I had NO power steering. And, please know, this this isn't like my old 72 Challenger with no power steering that would steer fine over 6-8 mph once everything was moving. This was like turning a John Deere tractor 4020, not running, with mostly flat tires.

3 times, twice in less than three weeks and today was an significant safety issue. Had I been on the highway flyover, which I at the last minute bypassed to take a more rural route, they would be burying me in that beautiful pink beast cuz I would have lost steering 80+ feet up on a poorly designed turn. There is VERY little in life that scares me, but this left me really tweaked out.

I am in a quandary as to how to move forward with this. The Service dept. assured me that it would be fixed last time it was serviced. Anyone else had issues chewing up their serpentine belts or the like?

 

[Hemi R/T]

Check all the pulleys for groove damage. I had a Pontiac Grand Prix that had a damaged pulley that was part of the harmonic balancer, looked like it had been dropped and the grooves were crushed together. It ate the first belt in less than 300 miles under normal driving.

 

[rubbel]

There is a tool using a lazer that fits onto grooves and can be used to check all pulley grooves line up. Also make sure none are bent, damaged, or wobbling.

 

[My326]

Both great calls, thanks!

Just talked to service, and they are not even sure how many times it's been in to be serviced. >.>

We'll see what they say after they get a look at the car.

 

[My326]

So, the service guy tells me that the pulley that is pressed onto the Water Pump pressed on too far, thus chewing through belts. My interaction with him got off to a really rocky start, sadly, and my wife bristled even harder than I did.

Does this pulley issue sound feasible? I'm not familiar with the pulley's fitment to the pump, itself, to know for sure, but this seems reasonable.

 

[STONEWHITE R/T]

If that's what's the matter with it that will fix it. The water pump pulley is ribbed one with shoulders on it. You should be able to check for wear of the belt relatively quickly by looking at the sides of the belt for fraying.

 

[08blackrt]

I had a problem with this on my 79 Trans Am. the power steering pulley was wobbling just a little, and it would eat the belt in about 6K miles. I had just put the second one on it, when I was setting the timing, and I was using one of those timing lights with the knob in the back that varied the timing of the light pulse, and when I got it set right, the wobble was easily seen. In normal light, it looked ok to me. I ended up replacing the whole pump and pulley both, as the place I took it too said that the pump would probably fail soon from the shaking that was occurring from the pulley. They put in a higher effort pump and box and it was a huge improvement. The owner took my pump apart while I was there and they weren't lying, the front seal was almost gone, and there was a bunch of junk inside the pump too, so it would have failed very soon anyway. It was so much better afterwards, with much more feel and it wasn't overboosted like it was originally.

 

[My326]

My wife popped on a couple of folks throughout this process on Thursday and Friday. That coupled with their ability to 100% of the time reproduce it by rapid acceleration and then rapid deceleration.

The Service Manager (or someone who would look at the situation from a big picture angle and realized my wife would own the dealership should this happen a fourth time and in turn something happen to me) has decided to replace the front side of the motor. Every pulley, fitment, all of it. So, I guess its a good fix. I am not inclined to be without for however long this will take.

In the mean time, Corp has paid for a rental for me. It's a mini van. >.>

At least I have sat radio and can listen to Graveyard. :bigthumb: