My owner's manual says to check the serpentine belt every 40,000 miles, and to change it at 60,000. This new-to-me car hit 40,000 right after I bought it, so the other day it was belt-checking time! I had a new belt ready to install if needed, and was looking forward to this project as an easy way to learn how to get access to another part of the engine. Thanks to books and tons of videos on YouTube, even an average Joe like me can do stuff like this, so that's the main message today.
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Slide the seats forward, and take off the carpeted panel. You can take off the
little bar on top of the trim, but I managed to just pry the entire panel off with
just a screwdriver and my fingers. |
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Back side of the carpeted cover, lots of foam.
Pro Tip: A Toyota Camry makes a handy table for holding car parts!
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Take off the aluminum cover next
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| 8 fasteners to remove the aluminum cover |
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| Aluminum cover removed |
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Now we can see where the belt goes around all the pulleys.
Between the driver and the engine was just that carpeted piece and the aluminum cover! |
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| All the ribs on the belt looks really good to me |
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| More belt inspection, all looks good here |
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| Still OK here |
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| Looking everywhere |
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| Looking good over here |
Well, I looked all over, and the belt seems to be totally OK, no missing sections, rips, no tears, not falling apart, good to go! In the immortal words of car mechanics everywhere, assembly is the opposite of disassembly. Looks like I'm forced to follow the manual, and wait for 60,000 miles to replace the belt.
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