The '70s called, they want their fan belt setup back

[mkirsch]

Admittedly I've owned this 2015 Chevy Silverado 1500 for 2-1/2 years and I never really paid attention to the fan belts, because you can't really see them easily.

The other day I took a good look down in there... THREE FAN BELTS?!?!

What happened to the serpentine system? I thought it was bad enough when my '03 came with two belts, but at least they had tensioners and weren't too tough to replace.

This truck has THREE fan/accessory belts, and it looks like two of them require "old school" loosening and tilting of accessories! Why?

To add insult to injury it looks like you have to pull most of the intake, and hang from a crane to get at the belts.

[Lessmore]

Jframpey wrote:
I just replaced the serpentine belt on my 2008 duramax... at 100,000 miles, routine preventative maintenance. I didn't bother keeping the old belt! As difficult as it was to replace - there's no way I'll be replacing it on the side of the road.

X 2. That's what I do, replace before it goes. Years ago (1994) while towing with our vehicle, with a Chevy 350 V8 (very common engine) I had to replace it's simple fan belt when it broke, about 70 miles from home.

As we were on a fairly long trip, I thought I'll pick up a spare fan belt, in case of problems on the road. I had to go to about 3-4 auto parts places in two states and one province, before I was able to get a fan belt for a 1976 Chevy V8..again this was in '94.

I was glad I was able to eventually pick one up, as if it was this difficult to get a fan belt for possibly the most common V8 engine on the road at that time...I can just imagine what it would be like for a less common engine.

Now I usually ask for the old serpentine belt that was removed from the engine and throw it in a parts/tool box, as a spare I keep on board when traveling.

[Jframpey]

I just replaced the serpentine belt on my 2008 duramax... at 100,000 miles, routine preventative maintenance. I didn't bother keeping the old belt! As difficult as it was to replace - there's no way I'll be replacing it on the side of the road.

[Passin_Thru]

Wish they do like Caterpillar, one belt, runs from damper to alternator.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=HBPETvTt&id=8050E770664821B3A78822D7A4E062AEB7DFF8B4&thid=OIP.HBPETvTtK0Cdvl-mqHJY7gEsDh&q=cat+3406e+motor&simid=608055727447343879&selectedIndex=49&ajaxhist=0

[Grit_dog]

Oops, forgot this was a thread on fan belts....nevermind, it was already off topic!
Carry on with griping about the metric system!

[Grit_dog]

^Derailing a good conversation with with a stab at the metric system and Canadians......smooth move, lol.

[minnow]

John & Angela wrote:

Lessmore wrote:

John & Angela wrote:

time2roll wrote:
With any luck these systems will be electric driven soon. NO belts on my electric vehicle.

Yep. On either of ours either. Also no hoses, air filters, oil filters, fuel filters, plug wires, spark plugs, etc etc etc. Oh and no fuel. Kinda cool going from 2000 moving parts to 18...and three of them are wipers. I bought a jug of washer fluid two years ago, just finished it. So about 2.29 total maintenance for two vehicles for two years.

Now we just need someone to get a viable 1/2 ton on the market. Yah I know EV's are not a panacea but they work for us.

You've painted a fairly positive picture of electric cars..with seemingly few negatives. But there certainly is the range issue, especially in very cold, rural climates with many miles to travel between Point A and point B...and few if any charging areas within these long, hard distances. It's one thing to try to eke out extra distance by traveling slow while carefully monitoring how much electric power is left in San Diego...quite another when it's -34 below in Saskatchewan or Montana and you've still got a fair distance to go...but the batteries discharged quicker than anticipated in the above mentioned deep freeze.

How much does it cost to replace the batteries ? I've heard quite expensive. I think the batteries are warranted for around 8 years or so....but given the expense of replacing it, I wonder what the resale value would be of an electric car at around 7 years.

Electric cars have their place in cities and as a second car for in town running around, but if all you can afford is one vehicle and you have to have it be a jack of all trades in range, varying weather and it has to be ready to go for multi members of the family...than maybe it's not as practical as needed.

Still at this point I see it as a vehicle for the technologically adventurous who can afford to have an electric vehicle as a second, perhaps a third car, but not the main and only family vehicle.

Will the all electric vehicle eventually get there and be able to be considered as the one and only vehicle for one family with multi drivers and handle a variety of mileage range driving at any time of the day/night...used by different family members ?

Certainly as the technology progresses. But for now, I think lack of range/charging time has been the bugaboo to wider use by people.

I could be wrong, but I think it may of been Jay Leno who said that the modern electric car mile range was not significantly better that his old 19 teen... something... Baker Electric.

The electric only car still seems to be a second or third vehicle for the enthusiast * with extra cash flow...or the an individual whose driving pattern is predictable, relatively low mileage.

* BTW, I'm an enthusiast that fits this bill, only no electric cars...but I do have a couple of vintage motorcycles that piqued my interest over the years.

Again, electric power has a long way to go as a practical alternative to the internal combustion engine...particularly the modern variety...low emissions, very good efficiency and ability to fuel up almost everywhere. No it's not perfect, but then neither is the all electric car.

I do think that hybrid..electric paired with IC engine and an efficient regenerative system to recharge is a very good option, one that we may consider down the road.

Howdy. I think many of your points are valid and agree that they are not the answer to everyones transportation needs. But for some of us they are a perfect fit. For those of us who do less than 120 KM a day the current crop of reasonable priced EV's works good pretty much under most conditions although there are certainly extremes that they don't fit. Ours gets us around 200 KM in good conditions and probably 150 km in the worst conditions for our area. For others there are more expensive units that would obvious suit larger range needs or even towing needs. Tesla comes to mind, but the reality is these are in the luxury sedan market so they are more aimed at the BMW Mercedes crowd. They can get around the 500 KM range. The new tesla 3 will be somewhere in between there but unless you have a reservation they won't be available for a couple years as the first two years of production is sold.

I don't know about EV's with bigger batteries but ours in todays dollars would be about 5500 bucks for a new 30KWH battery. Bigger batteries will be more expensive I'm sure. We bought ours to suit our needs at 40 percent capacity loss and although I don't expect that will happen in the conditions ours has to work in its something to think about. Our one car has lost 3 or 4 percent capacity, the other one is too hard to tell...maybe a couple percent. Both cars are a couple years old.

We only drive about 16000 km per year, (maybe 20,000 this year) so our two EV's work well for us. So yes we love em, yes they work good for us and yes, they are not the answer for everyone.

Cheers

All well and good but this is an RV forum where we use vehicles to tow large trailers over great distances.

Sorry not going to take the time to try and covert your KM to miles - 90+ percent of the members here use inches, feet, pounds, miles as measurement. I realise your moniker is "world traveler" and in your world, metric is your way but this is a USA centric RV'ing forum.

[Perrysburg_Dodg]

frankwp wrote:
Before changing a serpentine belt, make sure the diagram under the hood is still intact. My son & I changed the belt on his Buick & only realize the belt diagram was gone after removing the old one. It was so tight in there & very difficult to see & there were about 20 different ways the new one would almost fit. Took about an hour & a half to finally get it on right.

You could have googled it, the interweb can be helpful some times.

[Jarlaxle]

goducks10 wrote:

mich800 wrote:

wilber1 wrote:

sgip2000 wrote:
There's actually a good reason for this. Many trucks have one belt for A/C and PS and one for ALT, Air Pump, etc.

This is so if your A/C compressor or PS pump were to seize up, you could still drive.

Three belts, three times the chance of a failure.

Or conversely less chance to lose all belt driven accessories when the one serpentine version breaks.

Many serpentine's go 100,000 miles.

The original on my Dakota went 18 years and 160,000+ miles.

[Jarlaxle]

carringb wrote:

mich800 wrote:


Or conversely less chance to lose all belt driven accessories when the one serpentine version breaks.

My tensioner pulley seized and shredded my only belt. Still drove fine. Just goes into limp mode and pumps air through half the cylinders to keep cool. Even towing a trailer, the batteries last 4+ hours at night with all the lights on. Steering isn't bad once you get faster than jogging speed.

On a diesel, losing the power steering means losing all brake assist-the brake booster runs off the PS pump!

[John___Angela]

Lessmore wrote:

John & Angela wrote:

time2roll wrote:
With any luck these systems will be electric driven soon. NO belts on my electric vehicle.

Yep. On either of ours either. Also no hoses, air filters, oil filters, fuel filters, plug wires, spark plugs, etc etc etc. Oh and no fuel. Kinda cool going from 2000 moving parts to 18...and three of them are wipers. I bought a jug of washer fluid two years ago, just finished it. So about 2.29 total maintenance for two vehicles for two years.

Now we just need someone to get a viable 1/2 ton on the market. Yah I know EV's are not a panacea but they work for us.

You've painted a fairly positive picture of electric cars..with seemingly few negatives. But there certainly is the range issue, especially in very cold, rural climates with many miles to travel between Point A and point B...and few if any charging areas within these long, hard distances. It's one thing to try to eke out extra distance by traveling slow while carefully monitoring how much electric power is left in San Diego...quite another when it's -34 below in Saskatchewan or Montana and you've still got a fair distance to go...but the batteries discharged quicker than anticipated in the above mentioned deep freeze.

How much does it cost to replace the batteries ? I've heard quite expensive. I think the batteries are warranted for around 8 years or so....but given the expense of replacing it, I wonder what the resale value would be of an electric car at around 7 years.

Electric cars have their place in cities and as a second car for in town running around, but if all you can afford is one vehicle and you have to have it be a jack of all trades in range, varying weather and it has to be ready to go for multi members of the family...than maybe it's not as practical as needed.

Still at this point I see it as a vehicle for the technologically adventurous who can afford to have an electric vehicle as a second, perhaps a third car, but not the main and only family vehicle.

Will the all electric vehicle eventually get there and be able to be considered as the one and only vehicle for one family with multi drivers and handle a variety of mileage range driving at any time of the day/night...used by different family members ?

Certainly as the technology progresses. But for now, I think lack of range/charging time has been the bugaboo to wider use by people.

I could be wrong, but I think it may of been Jay Leno who said that the modern electric car mile range was not significantly better that his old 19 teen... something... Baker Electric.

The electric only car still seems to be a second or third vehicle for the enthusiast * with extra cash flow...or the an individual whose driving pattern is predictable, relatively low mileage.

* BTW, I'm an enthusiast that fits this bill, only no electric cars...but I do have a couple of vintage motorcycles that piqued my interest over the years.

Again, electric power has a long way to go as a practical alternative to the internal combustion engine...particularly the modern variety...low emissions, very good efficiency and ability to fuel up almost everywhere. No it's not perfect, but then neither is the all electric car.

I do think that hybrid..electric paired with IC engine and an efficient regenerative system to recharge is a very good option, one that we may consider down the road.

Howdy. I think many of your points are valid and agree that they are not the answer to everyones transportation needs. But for some of us they are a perfect fit. For those of us who do less than 120 KM a day the current crop of reasonable priced EV's works good pretty much under most conditions although there are certainly extremes that they don't fit. Ours gets us around 200 KM in good conditions and probably 150 km in the worst conditions for our area. For others there are more expensive units that would obvious suit larger range needs or even towing needs. Tesla comes to mind, but the reality is these are in the luxury sedan market so they are more aimed at the BMW Mercedes crowd. They can get around the 500 KM range. The new tesla 3 will be somewhere in between there but unless you have a reservation they won't be available for a couple years as the first two years of production is sold.

I don't know about EV's with bigger batteries but ours in todays dollars would be about 5500 bucks for a new 30KWH battery. Bigger batteries will be more expensive I'm sure. We bought ours to suit our needs at 40 percent capacity loss and although I don't expect that will happen in the conditions ours has to work in its something to think about. Our one car has lost 3 or 4 percent capacity, the other one is too hard to tell...maybe a couple percent. Both cars are a couple years old.

We only drive about 16000 km per year, (maybe 20,000 this year) so our two EV's work well for us. So yes we love em, yes they work good for us and yes, they are not the answer for everyone.

Cheers

[Lessmore]

John & Angela wrote:

time2roll wrote:
With any luck these systems will be electric driven soon. NO belts on my electric vehicle.

Yep. On either of ours either. Also no hoses, air filters, oil filters, fuel filters, plug wires, spark plugs, etc etc etc. Oh and no fuel. Kinda cool going from 2000 moving parts to 18...and three of them are wipers. I bought a jug of washer fluid two years ago, just finished it. So about 2.29 total maintenance for two vehicles for two years.

Now we just need someone to get a viable 1/2 ton on the market. Yah I know EV's are not a panacea but they work for us.

You've painted a fairly positive picture of electric cars..with seemingly few negatives. But there certainly is the range issue, especially in very cold, rural climates with many miles to travel between Point A and point B...and few if any charging areas within these long, hard distances. It's one thing to try to eke out extra distance by traveling slow while carefully monitoring how much electric power is left in San Diego...quite another when it's -34 below in Saskatchewan or Montana and you've still got a fair distance to go...but the batteries discharged quicker than anticipated in the above mentioned deep freeze.

How much does it cost to replace the batteries ? I've heard quite expensive. I think the batteries are warranted for around 8 years or so....but given the expense of replacing it, I wonder what the resale value would be of an electric car at around 7 years.

Electric cars have their place in cities and as a second car for in town running around, but if all you can afford is one vehicle and you have to have it be a jack of all trades in range, varying weather and it has to be ready to go for multi members of the family...than maybe it's not as practical as needed.

Still at this point I see it as a vehicle for the technologically adventurous who can afford to have an electric vehicle as a second, perhaps a third car, but not the main and only family vehicle.

Will the all electric vehicle eventually get there and be able to be considered as the one and only vehicle for one family with multi drivers and handle a variety of mileage range driving at any time of the day/night...used by different family members ?

Certainly as the technology progresses. But for now, I think lack of range/charging time has been the bugaboo to wider use by people.

I could be wrong, but I think it may of been Jay Leno who said that the modern electric car mile range was not significantly better that his old 19 teen... something... Baker Electric.

The electric only car still seems to be a second or third vehicle for the enthusiast * with extra cash flow...or the an individual whose driving pattern is predictable, relatively low mileage.

* BTW, I'm an enthusiast that fits this bill, only no electric cars...but I do have a couple of vintage motorcycles that piqued my interest over the years.

Again, electric power has a long way to go as a practical alternative to the internal combustion engine...particularly the modern variety...low emissions, very good efficiency and ability to fuel up almost everywhere. No it's not perfect, but then neither is the all electric car.

I do think that hybrid..electric paired with IC engine and an efficient regenerative system to recharge is a very good option, one that we may consider down the road.

[frankwp]

Before changing a serpentine belt, make sure the diagram under the hood is still intact. My son & I changed the belt on his Buick & only realize the belt diagram was gone after removing the old one. It was so tight in there & very difficult to see & there were about 20 different ways the new one would almost fit. Took about an hour & a half to finally get it on right.

[Rubiranch]

Speaking of electric cars my friend sent this to me. He's and electrical engineer and agrees.

The Electric car boondoggle, (copied)
I always wondered why we never saw a cost analysis on what it actually costs to operate an electric car. Now we know why.
At a neighborhood BBQ I was talking to a neighbor, a BC Hydro executive. I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He laughed, then got serious. If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, he pointed out, you had to face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service.
The average house is equipped with 100 amp service. On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than 3 houses with a single Tesla, each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.
This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles ... Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy the **** things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive, new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system! This latter "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead-end road that it will be presented with an oops and a shrug.
If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are eco-friendly, just read the following:
Note: If you ARE a green person, read it anyway. Enlightening.
Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors...and he writes...For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine. Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.
It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.
According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity. I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.
The gasoline powered car costs about $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000........So the American Government wants loyal Americans not to do the math, but simply pay 3 times as much for a car, that costs more than 7 times as much to run, and takes 3 times longer to drive across the country.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4dV1nfjQRY

[Rubiranch]

goducks10 wrote:

Many serpentine's go 100,000 miles.

My 2011 6.0L Chevy has two, the second is for the AC.

I changed them at 100,000 miles and neither one of them had a single crack in them and still looked great.

The same truck doesn't have a petcock to drain the radiator. The only way to drain the cooling system is to remover the lower hose and let it gush out all over the place.

Now there's some high tech engineering.

The old v-belts didn't last nearly as long as the newer serpentine belts do.