Q: Terrible squealing upon cold start and for a few minutes while driving afterward.
My car has been squealing horrifically every time I start it after it's sat overnight. The squealing stops after about a minute, but then for the first mile or so squeals again when I accelerate after stopping at lights/stop signs.
I just had the serpentine and drive belt replaced a few weeks ago and that seemed to remedy the problem, but only for about a week, and now it seems worse.
Thoughts?
My car has 120000 miles.
My car has an automatic transmission.
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Hello. The noise you are hearing is that new serpentine belt sliding and skipping on the pulleys they are driving. This is typically caused by the belt being loose, or a pulley refusing to turn freely. Your vehicle is equipped with one pulley who’s only job is to keep the belt tight. It also makes for easy assembly and disassembly when the belt needs to be removed. The pulley could have failed, or had not been installed correctly when the work was recently done. This is rather unlikely, however, if the problem was happening before you took the car in. You may want to test the arm on the pulley to test the spring. It should be relatively hard to move. Springs wear out over time and the pulley will need to be replaced.
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