2.7L Belt Squeak

At 60,000 miles my Taco developed a horrible squeak from the pulley system, which seemed to be too slow in frequency to be a bearing (once every couple seconds at idle).

Following the suggestions on here, I replaced my stock belt with a highly recommended belt and the squeak went away for a week or so. It is back now, and gets worse every week. It is only quiet on dry, non-humid days.

I took the belt off to look for the culprit, and the only pulley that has any slop or noise at all is the tensioner pulley, but I hear a little slop here is normal.

I put the belt back on and the squeak was immediately gone and still gone on this very wet morning. There are only two variables that I can think of:

(1) I reversed the belt just for the hell of it. (flipped it from the original direction it was spinning).

(2) My belt was initially runnning a little off center on the tensioner pulley. Upon re-installation it was centered.

I am wondering if this little slop in that pulley is forcing the belt out of alignment over time and causing the squeak? Are there any good replacements for that pulley that have less slop?

 

What belt was it. You can't beat a Gatorback IMO.

 

I had to look back on my Amazon orders, but it was a "

$24 Bando 7PK2285 OEM Quality Serpentine Belt

Bando 7PK2285 OEM Quality Serpentine Belt".

I could have sworn that I went with the recommendations on here, since my purpose for searching this forum was to find a solution to eliminate belt noise.

Perhaps a higher quality belt is stiffer and stays in-line better?

 

Fighting the same myself.

Dayco belt was too long, worked for a little while but started quietly chirping after a couple months when cold. The chirp was whenever the seam where the ends of the belt were joined passed the upper idler (as you said, it's not a fast chirp). The dealer's frame treatment (Toyota's voluntary frame rust campaign) completely ruined it beyond belief when the overspray coated the belt; squealed like a stuck pig at all rpm. Dealer denied any wrongdoing (as it's screaming up a storm idling right outside their door just after giving me the keys!) and refused to make it right even though their job was so far beyond piss poor I seriously considered selling the truck at a loss (I posted pics on here). Crown Toyota of Michigan lost a customer for life.

I cleaned the pulleys with carb cleaner and a rag to get as much of that spray residue off as I could and tried a Gates/Napa belt. Proper length, was good and quiet for a while, but now just over a year and 10k miles later it squeals on every startup.

Ponied up the dough and bought an OEM for $75 online. OEM belts have a crosshatch texture on the back side whereas the aftermarkets are smooth. If that don't work, all idlers will have to go.

That idler on the tensioner... I don't know what's up with it. Replaced mine with OEM after I bought the truck because the old one wiggled a little and the new one has a small amount of play as well. Drat.