Scion Xa Squealing like mad!

[Brentbba]

My daughters '04 Scion Xa squeals like made first thing in the morning when she pulls away from the curb. She reports that's the only time it happens. She mentioned it last time she had it in and had them look at the belts. They said they were starting to show some cracking, but were still ok. I sprayed some belt conditioner on them and that hasn't helped.

Power steering fluid is fine. Could it be something in the power steering pump?

This only occurs first thing in the morning and not the rest of the day according to my daughter. Don't want to take it in w/o some idea of what it is and I can only think it's the belts or something in the power steering. Steers fine when I've driven it.

Any ideas? She doesn't have school on Fridays so thinking of dropping off Thursday evening so they can 'test' it on Friday morning to see if they can duplicate the issue.

Loose belt perhaps? Quick search and looks like the alternator belt could be loose? Pretty simple...even for me to tighten that a little bit.

Tempted to just replace the belts given that the car is 12 years old and belts haven't been replaced as far as I can remember. She's only got 75K on the car. Age on belts = bad.

 

[FromTjtoLC]

My guess would be she needs a new serpentine belt.

 

[1FZj80]

my guess, belt tension.
could be a fluid leak making it worse,
when things are cold there is a little more load on belts which could explain symptoms.
good luck

 

[Brentbba]

Thx - pretty much decided I'd rather be safe than sorry and have the belts replaced and we'll go from there. No fluid leaks at all Mark. It's been a remarkably good little car for her. Procedure to tighten the alternator belt looks pretty easy, but given some indication of cracking on the belts per Toyota, I'm just going to replace them. Surprised they didn't try to sell that to her when she had it in. Young female = easy up sell on maintenance.

 

[Brentbba]

Two belts won't/shouldn't be to expensive. Probably 1-1/5 hours labor, so maybe $200 or so? Just don't have the time or inclination to learn to do belts myself right now.

 

[sdnative]

Check the tensioner, could be going bad.

 

[Brentbba]

Tensioner on the alternator? Daughter texted me back saying that when it was in and had mentioned the squealing that the belts tension was fine. Something isn't adding up.

 

[PabloVTA]

Hydro assist, body lift, 4 link it with 38's....

 

[Brentbba]

Hydro assist, body lift, 4 link it with 38's....

If changing the belts doesn't work, that's my next step Pablo!

 

[PabloVTA]

did they put on serrated belts instead of flat?

 

[Brentbba]

did they put on serrated belts instead of flat?

As far as I can remember, these are the original belts from '04! Vehicle, outside a couple of fluid flushes (power steering, etc.) that I haven't wanted to do or pay dealer rates to do and being done by a little shop, have been performed by the dealer with OEM parts.

That's why when my daughter mentioned the squealing that it surprised me that they didn't say the belts needed changing, only that they were showing some signs of cracking but still ok. She did say the dealer quoted something around $225 for the job. I asked her to make an appt for Friday and if we could bring it in Thurs evening so they could hear the squealing first hand in the morning.

 

[Brentbba]

Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner to sdnative...so far. Took it in and all they did was adjust the tensioner. They didn't charge us. Now why did they say the tension was ok a few weeks ago? Hmmm. They also said rear drum pads still had 50% left and really didn't need replacing! Must have been a pretty incompetent tech a few weeks ago. Makes me really, really wonder about Capo Toyota/Scion or whatever their name is now.