[macster]

Don

Thats it. It "appears" that there is a corellation between washing the car (spraying water on the grill area and around the hood with a water hose and the squeak) What appears to being happening is that the water carries contaminits (sp) on to the pulleys, which causes the belt to slip and hench squeek. The fix is to jack the car up on the passenger side, remove the inner splash panel and the belt. Then clean the pulley's very throughly. Like magic the squeak/ squeal goes away. Donot spray, belt cleaner (wanna buy a can) or any of that crap on the belts. Just clean the pulleys with a good cleaner (I used spray can brake parts cleaner) and it worked for me. I also used a tooth brush which I saturated with the cleaner and put it on the pulleys while the car was running at idle (never claimed to be smart). But I cleaned everything very throughly. I cleaned the "new" belt with a clean dry rag, nothing else. Tthrift also had a similar problem and used a similar solution. But I hope no one is dumb enough to do it while the car was running like I was. Its a skill that I developed, from years of being around rotating machinery, but its still a, extremely, stuipd thing to do. I also brought two stiff plastic brushes from Home Depot to use since they are none abrasive. Sorry for the long post, I'm tired and I'll correct any spelling and grammar errors later. But I just wanted to let you know what I did. I'm very happy with my car, but I want my dealer to follow the procedures in the service manual, when there is a problem.

Peace

macster