Hey guys, I was on my way home from picking up my MINI after I took it in to get the starter and clutch slave cylinder replaced and my supercharger belt is starting to basically shred. What happened was I got on the gas a bit and heard some really loud slapping coming from the right front. I immediately got off the gas and it went away after another like half second and the car was fine, so I continued on thinking it was probably some snow/ice my tire picked up and flung up into the wheel well. The second time I noticed the same sound I pulled over and popped the hood and low and behold I only had half a supercharger belt left I just ordered a new belt tensioner, belt, 15% pulley from MINI Mania, Detroit Tuned tensioner stop, 4 new colder heat range NGK plugs, and rented the pulley puller and tensioner tool which will hopefully arrive tomorrow or early next week. The thing that concerns me is that the previous said he replaced the belt just before I bought it and Ive only put about 1,000 miles on since then. What would cause the belt to shred so fast?

 

Could be a failed tensioner. Did you inspect it?

 

I haven't yet, but it would make a ticking noise when it sat idling from more than 10 seconds in that area, so I'm assuming it's the tensioner, but it's overdue for replacement anyways

 

Looks like you're making the most out of a bad situation upgrading to a 15% pulley. Fun times ahead!

 

Take a good hard look at your crank pulley too, those have been know to fail as well.

I'm betting it's the tensioner too tho, especially if it's noisey.

 

yeah it's similar to what I did when my throwout bearing exploded and I installed a Fidanza flywheel and Spec stage 1 clutch. When life hands you lemons make lemonade!