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Old 05-24-2019, 09:51 PM
Jarhed1964 Jarhed1964 is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2016
Location: Charlotte, NC
Posts: 128
Jarhed1964 is on a distinguished road
Dodged a huge bullet.

Got home yesterday, got out of the car, and saw a huge puddle of coolant growing underneath when I went to the door and did my obligatory "you are such a hot bitch" look back.

I saw dried coolant around the upper hose connection to the radiator. Pulled it into the garage last night and started pulling things off to get to it. Thank God this happened. I found "cotton" all over the place. At first, I couldn't figure out where it came from, but then looked at the Serpentine belt. It had huge chunks out of it, in some places it was only half width, and there were little ribbons of the belt all over the place.

Spent this evening pulling little pieces of ribbon from around the alternator pulley (it was very tough to turn with TWO belt ribbons around it), pulled the tensioner off and removed the chunks and ribbons of the belt from around it, even having to get a pick to pull the end out from the last piece so I could unravel it from the power steering pump.

These belts are a little more than a year and a half old. They shredded because before I replaced the valve cover, tensioner, and OFHG, they got soaked in oil, which as we all know degrades the belts badly. I had the belts in my garage but got lazy before putting everything back together. Yet another lesson learned: REPLACE THE DAMN BELTS YOU KNOW ARE ALREADY BAD, ESPECIALLY IF YOUR LAZY KIESTER HAS THE BELTS SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO YOU.

The hose, an OE from Hendrick BMW, was $126, plus two bottles of coolant, which I didn't need to refill and bleed, but I was down to a couple of quarts left of my spare anyway.

I can't imagine how disgusted I would have been leaving work and throwing that belt. At this point, I am actually THANKFUL that the hose was leaking (a VAICO from the previous owner) because it had been two weeks since I had the hood open and would not have seen that belt mess otherwise. And to brag, I'm getting really good at putting a new AC belt on by hand. No install tool.



EDIT 5/25:

****MAJOR CORRECTION****

Now that I can see it in the light, turns out my 14-month-old Nissens radiator is leaking like a sieve. FCP Lifetime Warranty is going to be put to the test. Ordered a new one, completed warranty paperwork. So, other than the $7.99 cost to ship my new one, and my yet unknown cost to ship back the warrantee one (Going as cheap as humanly possible), no cost.
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2016 X5 SDrive 35i Sport
2009 X5 XDrive30 Sport acquired 10/21/16 "Brigette"
2005 530i Sport acquired 5/2014 (wife traded for a milktoast Honda)
1999 528i Sport (306k miles!!) acquired 8/2006 "Prescilla" (sold)
1997 528i acquired 8/2004, "Helga" parted out and gone
1992 735iL acquired 6/2003, "Wanda" sold

Last edited by Jarhed1964; 05-25-2019 at 10:37 AM.
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