dealer screw up BEWARE!

my dealer put my serpentine belt on backwards (one direction belt). Has anyone heard of this happening? It destroyed the water pump after 10000 miles.

 

Yikes!

 

Serpentine belt on backwards! Hahaha! I gotta hand it to you, that's pretty original. Did the water pump impeller fail because of this?

 

Im sure he means routed backwards, but I would think it would overheat off the bat??

 

This doesn't make sense to me. How is a belt put on backwards?

 

I believe what he is saying is the routed the belt on the wrong side of the pulley which caused it to spin in the wrong direction?

 

Never heard of a serp belt being directional. Pretty sure that's not right. Did they put it on inside out? Like the smooth side of the belt running on the ridged pullies? That would be hard to do, but suppose it's possible.

Did the truck overheat? The water pump spinning backwards from a mis routed belt would cause the truck to heat I am pretty sure. It would be really hard to mis route the belt and still have the tensioner work right.

 

Note to self: Avoid Texas Toyota Service Shops.

 

You smell something? I smell fishy story.

 

I don't even think it's possible to route the belt incorrectly, if you went to the different side of any of the pulleys it'd be either way to tight or way too long.

 

Plus I'm sure someone isn't going to ignore all logic because its nearly impossible to run a waterpump the wrong way unless aftermarket.

 

Well, it's his third post. The other two are about the same problem. I believe he's got a problem with his truck, sounds like he took it in for warranty service while on a trip, and the dealer he took it to said the belt was on backwards. He may not have any way of knowing other than to take the dealer's word on it.

I'm in the trades too, there's some smart guys out there, and there are some knuckle draggers too. Some of them are dishonest, some like to make up crazy stories and point fingers at the last guy who did work on the machine.

Hope you get it fixed OP. If you have any other details on how they put the belt on "backwards", I would really be interested.

 

I wish I could say I've never seen it done professionally before but..

And not on a vehicle, they were stand alone pumps. and the noise they make would instantly alert you to a problem

 

they might have routed the sep belt wrong. it's very easy to do. That is why you should always draw a pic and diagram of how the belt is routed. The thermostat doesn't open till over 180* degrees even if the water pump is running. I changed mine out since it went out, not to hard but just a lot of removal of stuff. Luckily i was also changing out my fan to an e-fan so i had a lot of room to work.

 

Of and your belt really isn't directional. they might have also flipped the belt upside down. where the ribbed part was on the smooth part. Regardless if it's only been 10k miles you should be under warranty? If not look up my water pump write up.

 

Add to list of things to do tomorrow: Open hood and see how it is possible to put belt on backwards

 

WHAT they put blinker fluid in the headlight reservoir?

Keep an eye on them.

Don't ever let them use a standard crescent wrench on metric bolts.

 

Thank's for all the response! This sounds like two dealers having a squabble. As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as a directional belt. Possibly the dealer that told me the belt was backward wanted some warranty work. Got the truck home and still had a drip. Back to the dealer! The bypass hose was slit from a strand of wire from the seperated belt. Probably did'nt even need a new water pump!

 

Some belts are directional snow mobiles for example but not a flat belt no matter what way you put it on it's only going to turn the same way the engine does. Some things can be driven from the back side of the belt that will make a pulley turn the other way but I can't see how it can be miss installed it won't fit either too much left over or too little. If your water pump was turning the wrong way it would have overheated a long time ago.