Well hello folks!

At 135,000 miles, I am still on the original serpentine belt.

When do you think is an appropriate time to replace it? When it starts looking bad?

Thanks,
Trav

 

I'd say 135k is a good time to think about changing it! lol that's great yours has lasted that long. I am at 64k and during my last oil change at the dealer they said mine was going to need changing soon. I am sure they're full of it but it's probably a simple job I can do myself in the driveway. I would think around 100k unless you start to see cracks and signs of drying out.

 

I recently reached 80k miles and because I now live in the hot desert of California I'm going to be changing my belt at 90k.

This heat does a number on batteries and tires and in the past 12 months I've seen a lot of cars on the side of the road with maintenance related breakdowns.

My advice, get your belt changed now.

 

In General, I would say inspect at 100k and act accordingly. If the belt is showing cracking, replace, if the belt is making noises, replace. If all looks well, drive on.

Aftermarket belts are less than $20, OEM is $40 plus s/h, at these prices, if you are doing the job yourself, you can put a new belt every year

Max

 

Thanks for the suggestion, I think I'll use it and change my belt this time based on the numer of years its been. I'm currently looking at 5 years.

 

Besides looking for a dry cracked looking belt, is another way of knowing you need a new belt is if you can move the belt 1 to 1.5 inches to either side? I have heard that before and don't know if it's true or not?

 

All belts stretch with time, thats a fact of life. If we had manual tensioner, then the answer would be you can just adjust the tension, like 4th gen. If you have slack belt, that does not automatically mean that the belt is bad. Looks like the 7th gen has automatic spring loaded tensioner, so it should automatically remove slack.
Typically you will hear noise from a slack belt, due to slippage.
Max

 

Gotcha. Makes sense. Thanks.

 

I will say I had to change an automatic belt tensioner once. Not on a maxima but it happens!

 

125k on my 09 and original belt.
Still looks fine.

 

I've never seen a belt fail. Even ones with cracks or screaming from cold starts etc. Don't change it even though its cheap it would just be unnecessary and wasteful. Once you see or hear any sign of a failure change it.

 

I've seen the older V-belts fail, but not a newer, flat serpentine belt.

20+ years ago I was riding in a late 80's vintage Chrysler product (a school car), and unbeknownst to us, the A/C compressor seized up. It just so happened that when the belt burned up and broke, the alternator was also driven by the same belt. So we got to where we were going, but when it was time to go back, we were dead in the water.

 

zoemayne you must live a charmed life. While I've never had a belt fail on any of my personal cars I've seen lots fail, v-belts and serpentine ones. My 97 Maxima had a bad belt tensioner so I had that replaced and changed the belt at the same time.

I've been in California for a year now and in that time I've seen maybe 4 people on the side of the road with broken belts, blowouts, or worse yet out of gas because they pulled a "Kramer" and tested their luck.

To me spending $40-$50 now is way better than having to walk to the next exit or wait for AAA to come rescue me because of an "idiot" failure on my part.

idiot failures are the breakdowns that could have been avoided, the worse being running out of gas.