Hi all,

I have a belt squeal problem on my '09 that I don't think is the standard idler pulley problem.

I've replaced the belt with a brand new one, and the squeal persists. Here's what's happening...

When starting out from a complete stop, when I push the accelerator, I get a period of squeal from under the engine at the very beginning when the engine is under load, that stops once the car gets going. It sounds like a classic "slipping belt" which is why I replaced the belt, figuring that would solve the problem, but it hasn't.

Is there any possibility that my tensioner is not tensioning the belt fully for some reason?

There is no noise on startup, and it doesn't matter if the car is cold or warmed up. It only happens when accelerating from a dead stop.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

IME, all belts will slip if not adjusted properly, regardless of their age. YMMV

I haven't tensioned a belt in years but, some still need to be adjusted manually while others have some kind of 'automatic' adjustment mechanism. I have my suspicions about the "automatic" ones. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the Vantage had just such an 'automatic' one and that it was not up to the job on occasion.

According to a Redpants.lol (a forum regular) article the Aston updated the idler pulley and belt on the Vantage 4.7L engine (fits 4.3L also) that supposedly fixed a "chirping" problem on startup with the 4.3L engine. I assume this is "the standard idler pulley problem" you referred to?

I would not put much stock in the difference between a momentary squeal on startup as mentioned in the redpants article, vs one on acceleration, or when turning on the air-condition or turning the steering wheel to extremes, etc., etc. Any and all pulleys on a given belt will experience varying amounts of friction at various times depending on circumstances and when one combines them all (belts and pulleys, and varying loads), the number of possibilities can be quite high, IMO.

I have a 2007 and there is little doubt that if i had an annoying belt squeal and wanted to fix it, that I would install the updated pulley AND the belt (according to the redpants article replacing only the belt or the idler is insufficient) that goes with it. Good luck.

 

there's an idler pulley and also the tensioner pulley... correct? did you check both?

 

Well, that's a good question. None of the pulleys I could turn squeaked when I had the belt off. The squeal only happens under load and only briefly when starting from a dead stop.

Since the problem only seems to manifest under load, it will probably be very hard to diagnose.

My thinking is that it's not a pulley but rather the belt slipping. My question is whether it's possible for the spring in the tensioner to go bad or weaken over time.

If this is a thing, then I guess I'm leaning towards that as being the issue. If this is rare, then I'll have to look to other sources for the noise.