Diagnosing a Car Pulley Problem

Video Transcript

"Checking the automotive pulleys with these serpentine belt systems. We have very few issues with pulleys. Most often what happens with pulleys is they get bent or damaged either by somebody trying to remove the pulley using a pry bar instead of a proper puller or some physical damage the car gets in a collision and the pulleys get pushed back. Here is a power steering pulley right here and what you want to do is start the car and observe the pulley. If the pulley starts to wobble, then you know that it need it needs to be replaced. You are going to get noise, it is going to cause belt wear and things like that so you'll have to watch it and if it needs to come off you will have to replace the pulley. If it is cracked, bent or broken, that's it, it cannot be repaired. We have some other pulleys like this right down here idle pulley that has a baring on it and that maintains the tension on the belt. It also has a built in tension on these serpentine belts and sometimes that baring inside wears out and gets noisy and that idle pulley starts to wobble a little bit and then that assembly has to be replaced. At the same time you replace the pulley it is also a good time to replace your serpentine belt. Here you have a water pump pulley right all around the end of the water pump. Those can go bad too but again if somebody tried to pry on it or pound on it with a hammer that is going to cause it to go bad. The same with the alternator pulley which is buried down there. So again it is just physically looking at the pulley and making sure it is not wobbling and also kind of looking to see if it is not cracked or bent and if it is it has to be replaced."