Serpentine Belt falls off - '98 Voyager 3.0 V6

Our 1998 Voyager (3.0 liter Mitsubishi V6) has gone thru 3 serpentine belts in the past few years, the last one lasted 8 months before it skips a groove and starts to edge it's way off the pulleys. The outer edge of the belt (towards the passenger side of the car) starts to fray. I put one on and shops have done the last two.

I had a new tensioner (with belt) installed ($190) by a shop less than

3000 miles (8 months) ago. Another local shop says there is a TSB about some "tensioner snow shield" that may help. A search on Alldata does pull up TSG 07-01-99.

formatting link
A search of the 'net has shown others with this problem and not all of them had the problem cured by this "tensioner snow shield". Apparently water spashes up and causes the belt to fall off, in some cases. I'm also thinking it may be a pulley alignment issue, but am not sure. It looks OK by eyeball, but we know that is not a precise measurement.

My question is, anyone out there familiar with this problem and what did you do to make your serpentine belt stay where it belongs? Belts which require replacement every 3/4 year does not sound right.

Reply to
Ken Peterson
Loading thread data ...

Ken

That has been one of the litany of problems I've had with my '95 Town and Country - Had the belt fall off once and didn't even make it home from the dealer before it fell off again! Had them pick up the towing charge! Tensioner replaced almost every time. No apparent fraying of the belt.

Somewhere in all these postings, I did get a reply to a posting I made where the text of the service bulletin was posted that suggested this shield in case of snow - seems Chrysler didn't include just plain water and a problem causing the belt to fall off. Hitting standing water in blinding rainstorms used to be a guarentee for the belt to come off.

Cross my fingers, I haven't had a belt fall off in a couple of years now

- but it happened with such amazing regularity some years back that I got the CSAA extended plan where I could get a free 100 mile tow - needed to use it a couple of times

Weather man predicts really heavy rain for the next few days - I cross my fingers..

Regards Peter

Ken Peters> Our 1998 Voyager (3.0 liter Mitsubishi V6) has gone thru 3 serpentine

Reply to
peter denyer

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.