Serpentine Belt Tensioner - Watch Out For This

[ron.dittmer]

Just letting you know that a friend of mine works on a lot of Chrysler 3.7L engines including the Liberty. He says the serpentine belt tensioner spring (not the pulley itself) seems to be consistently breaking at around 60,000 miles. He suggests to replace it at 50,000 miles.

With 56,000 miles on our 2006 Liberty 3.7L, I replaced my belt tensioner as a precaution. It turns out one of the two pulleys on it was about to fail anyway. I bought the replacement at Autozone of which the one pulley was the wrong diameter. He got another pulley of the right diameter off the shelf and all was well.

I replaced the serpentine belt too.

The tensioner assembly looks like this. One pulley is stationary, the other pivots off the spring.

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[nchorselover55]

Sure hope mine keeps holding up... have 101k and still on original belt and tensioner. Manual calls for replacing belt at 120k.

 

[Cacher123]

Mine broke on one of the support arms a long time ago.... Fine since replacing.

 

[Slugger103]

Mine is all original at 207K, so I guess I got lucky. However it is one of the parts I'm changing this week seeing how I needed to do the belt anyway. New one already sitting on my bench awaiting install.

 

[tommudd]

Mine is all original at 207K, so I guess I got lucky. However it is one of the parts I'm changing this week seeing how I needed to do the belt anyway. New one already sitting on my bench awaiting install.

stock one yet at 207,000 miles WOW
In that many miles I changed the ones on my 04 at least 4 times