AgRunner06

Ok guys, here's the deal. My sister has a '97 4runner V6. Well apparently it started making a lot of noise the other day and then it stalled. My dad said the noise is coming from the front of the engine compartment. He had it towed to a Toyota dealership in Austin where he was told the bearings in the AC compressor were out and the water pump was leaking a little bit. When my dad first looked at the car before it went to the dealership he said that the belts seemed pretty tight. He said that one had 1/2" or less of play. Here's my question, could the belts being overtightened have caused this damage?

I'm thinking the dealership is trying to screw him. They wanted 5 hours of labor to do the water pump. That seems like a little much to me.

My dealership here just did the timing belt on it. Timing belts are so routine that I wouldn't think that a tech would overtighten the other belts when putting it back together. I'm still going to call my service guy in the morning and have a word with him.

Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks for the help.



EDIT: The 4runner has 120K mile on it.

AgRunner06

Hey guys with a 3.4L, could you tell me how your belts are tightened? Maybe even throw in a pic if you get the chance?

I'm not sure if they changed the belt system between the different years.

Thanks

:alien:

MTL_4runner

The alternator tightens one belt and the AC compressor does the other.

Alt belt shown here:


....and to answer your question yes you can overtighten the belts and do damage like that. They should have a process but when I used to be a mechanic I have seen some real dumbasses crank on the belts to make sure they were on there only to have the customer come back with problems like you are talking about. One guy even overtightened a timing belt and caused it to break in only 500 miles. He didn't trust the spring return on the tensioner to put the proper tension so he helped it with a prybar. Yeah, good work there genius! The stupid stuff I saw used to drive me up the wall....thank god I don't let any of those characters have at my vehicle anymore.

DrumheadAR

I would say, if it's a problem caused by anything with or near the belts, the dealer that did the timing belt should be fixing the problem. Good luck with the service guy.

AgRunner06

Thanks for the help and the good luck. I'll give him a call tomorrow and see what can be done. My service guy is pretty cool and hopefully he will work with me on this. If he doesn't he will definitely be losing any future money out of my pocket.



EDIT: I'll do him one better. I'll be knocking at his door at 8am.