Squealing Belt on '94 SL1

Aug 07, 2003 3 Replies

ok, so i took my car in to fix a squealing belt (sounds similar to a banshee being tortured). it's usually when i turn my car on and put it into drive that it squeals. sometimes if i have the steering wheel turned all the way to one side it'll squeal too. also when i turn on my a/c that seems to trigger it more and when it's humid or raining. the mechanic looked at the belt and tensioner, and he said both were working just fine. he proposed it may be a problem with the clutch in the a/c compressor. spraying the belt dressing only solves the problem for a couple days and i'd like to resolve the issue for longer if possible without spending a whole lot. i've read some posts from other saturn owners with a similar problem but none of them mentioned the a/c triggering the squeal so i wasn't sure if it was something else. thanks for your help...


Replace the belt. Classic sign of a shot belt. If not, the tensioner's wasted too.

Pull the belt off, spin the a/c pulley. If it turns free and easy, then it's not the clutch.

How old is the belt? Is it origional?

I'd say it's fairly likely that the tensioner is bad, the spring can weaken with age. You'd have to take it off and compare the spring torque to a new one to know for sure, but if it has high miles you might as well just change it out..

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