I recently noticed that my belt has had 2 grooves on it shredded out of the total 6, so after me and my friend replaced the belt, he noticed that the alternator pulley looks to narrow for the new belt, it looks like it can only fit a 5 notch belt rather than a 6, or the lip of the pulley has been dented in somehow, which explains the original belt getting torn, now my question is, has anyone had this problem b4? Is it possible my pulley has been replaced with the wrong one by some idiot b4 I bought the car? Additionally, how hard is it to get to the alternator pulley in a maxima?, Thanks

 

Looks like you someone might have put in a wrong pulley.

I did replace both the belts over the last weekend and I checked all pulleys and those were wide enough. And my old belt had all 6 grooves in it fine only the problem it had was some cracks which exposed through half the thickness of the belt.

This grooved belts usually don't break since they have special material at the top but if the V-belt gets a crack through half thickness then it will just simply break. Maybe I am wrong in my thinking? Can someone correct me here?