On the way home 3 days ago, I got a warning half way and the battery light came on. When I got home, I ran the codes and I have a 3490 MAP Thermostat activation, 3850 Alt Mechanical Malfunction, 3840- Alt. electrical Malfunction.

I just took a look at it and I can see the brand new belt that I put in about a year ago is totally shredded. It was supposedly a Performance Kevlar reinforced belt from ECS Tuning.

At the time, I figured my alternator likely gave out. However, I can see there is no belt on top of the alternator and the belt disintegrated. I never suspected the belt in a million years since it was nearly brand new in the scheme of things.

Since the water pump is on this drive, could I be looking at possible engine damage?

 

First one I heard do this for our ECS belt, some thing i have seen is on even the Genuine Belt is: A. it was not the right size. 2 sizes for the Gen 2 and you match the old one on size. B. The belt walked off due to the alignment of the pulleys or a damaged pully. C. The tensioner and friction or alternator gear caused issues and the belt cam off under load. Like a seizure or something. I would check all the pulleys and check the alignment of the systems to se if it walked it off. D. Rare but something came up from the road and hit the belt. These cars have little splash guards but no belly pans unless its a GP2. Let me know.

 

Once I have a replacement belt in, I will crack the wheel off and see what it going on. I suppose it could still be the alternator as well. If the bearing on the alternator went, it would cause it to wobble and that would walk the belt off. I need to get in there.

I don't know why this stupid car would not throw a temperature warning as more important than a battery/alternator and override that light. I would have stopped immediately on a temp warning compared to a battery/alternator failure that tells me I have limited time to get my car to where it is going before there is no more juice to make it go. Electricity is more like a fuel.

 

I had one of those belts too. Lasted about 3 months before it shredded. Went back to an original and all has been well from it. They are really nicely designed and cool that they are the only ones available, but it didn't last long.

 

Yeah, it looks beautiful. I wish I had not destroyed my engine over it.

At the time, I noticed it was slightly more thin by maybe a .5 mm. I'm sure that plastic red Kevlar in the Texas heat melted like hot butter....leaving lots of torsion.

 

I said I would come back and report. The ECS belt disintegrating was the entire issue. It also wrapped around the back of the crankshaft pulley and destroyed the harmonic oscillator rubber cushioning and the main seal.

I replaced the oscillator, the main seal and put on a new BMW belt. It seems to be ok. However, when I first started it up, it sounded weird and this there was this use "Sussshhhhhhhh" at about a minute as this massive amount of pressure seemed to be released somewhere in the back of the engine. After that, it ran fine. Anyone know what that was. I have never heard of that before. I presume it had something to do with over-heating.

 

When I ordered an OEM belt thinking these belts would last the longest. I don't remember who I got the belt from got shredded with the exact same situation. The fragment of the belt got all wrapped up behind the crankshaft pulley that I had to use a extra long nose needle nose plier to get the stuff out. I have checked all pulleys to see if there were any seizures and alignment and all of 'em checked out good. I did buy GATES belt to see if it will happen again which it did NOT. I think that extreme heat from the ambient temperatures played a major role for it demise

 

Yes, I live in Texas so I had extreme heat as well and that's what I believed caused the failure. The so called Kevlar backing looked at the time just to be plastic when I installed it. The total belt thickness was reduced for this plastic Kevlar. I think the belt stretched because I noticed over time a very slight lack of performance in the A/C and battery charging. I think eventually this stretched to a point where it flopped apart.

The OEM belt is just a Dayco belt BTW. So you can save a few $'s going with Dayco. I didn't know that at the time. However, I purchased the belt from OEM and paid the extra $20 hoping not to do this again. I checked and there is nothing out of alignment and I never moved anything yet either. All I did was replace the belt.