Hi all! I have been having an issue with my engine squealing only when my air conditioner is on. It always blows ice cold, but I suppose the squeal occurs when the compressor is kicking on. I have only noticed this issue while driving, never when idling, and the temperature of the air has never changed. The noise sounds like a belt slipping, severely slipping i might add. Has anyone had experience with this issue? Thanks!

 

New belt.... or improper tension.....

 

Im guessing what happened is you havent used your ac alot, so the pump might be gettign seized.

But since it blows cold, might want to check the belt tension.

 

I use the AC fairly often, even up in Alaska its been in the 80s. I'm going to hope its a belt issue and get it fixed next time I get down to Anchorage. Hopefully that will sovle my problem.

 

My ac belt squealed. I looked at the belt tension and it was tight, started worrying that the pulleys weren't properly lined up. Found that my belt was too tight! The belt was being forced down into the pulley groove excessively and made lots of noise until I loosened it up a little. A new one for me...

 

yes, hes right... e eryone thinks that they need to crank the hell outta the tensioners of the belts, but there actually needs to be a little bit of deflection in them...
the rule of thumb in my family is that you get them tight enough that you can take 2 fingers to the longest span of belt and push on it with light to medium pressure to make it deflect 1/4-1/2 inch...

 

just had the same problem fixed. Noisy when the compressor was on only, and it blew ice cold, but the noise really made me think it was on its last legs. First thing I replaced were the belt and tensioner because my belt was worn, but that didn't solve the problem. For me, it was the compressor's bearing that was beginning to fail. I had to replace the compressor. My mechanic informed me that if the bearing failed in the worst case scenario, the compressor can seize (even when off) and stop my accessory drive belt essentially leaving me stranded. I also loooves my AC.

 

Well I only hear the squeal when the AC button is pressed, if it was the compressor bearing, wouldn't this happend whenever the engine was spinning the belt? Or is it only spinning when the AC is actually on?

 

Do you have a knife? If it seizes, cut the A/C belt off... At least on the 3VZE, the AC belt is only for the AC.

 

When you push the button it engages the free wheeling clutch on the front of the a/c compressor, therefor spining the compressor. Mine was making a ton of racket when kicked on, ended up being a seized up tensioner pulley, belt would slide over it fine untill the compressor would kick on and put extra tension on the belt.