Quote:
Originally Posted by Flying Ace
Is there an official maintenance requirement to replace certain belts and tensioners?
I have an squeal after cold starts and I need to replace the idler pulley. Not sure if there's other related maintenance items to do while I'm in the that general area.
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I'm doing these now, not because of symptoms but because this is my 5th BMW and I know better than to wait for them to age out. My car is a March 2008 build with 89,8xx miles on it. THe tensioners and pulleys seem fine as they come off, but the idler bearing on the PS/AC belt is in rough shape, really gravelly sounding compared to the new pulley. And obviously the belts at 90,000 miles while they may look fine are certain to be nearing the end of their realistic service life, and lately everything plastic that gets hot that I touch on my car has been pretty brittle unless warmed up first lately so I'm glad I'm doing it.
Pro tip: If you're dumb like me and don't take off the water pump pulley to do the main accessory belt tensioner TAKE YOUR TIME WITH THE TENSIONER TO BLOCK BOLT. I scared the shit out of myself before I realized I didn't have it threaded in at all and thought I had bought myself a timesert job on a $1$,$$$ engine block. With the water pump pulley off it'd be trivial but it's a fishing expedition to get it back in there and threaded with it on.
Another pro tip: TApe off the upper radiator support so you don't mangle your forearms on the sharp edge of the plastic. Or, you know, wear long sleeves.
And final pro tip: Cut a piece of cardboard and blue tape it in place between the radiator and the engine so you don't bend fins/skin knuckles when you drop tools:tensioner/beers. Glad I did.