Last Saturday the serpentine belt on our 2011 T&C(3.6L with about 34K miles) shredded apart when I started the engine. Had the belt replaced the following Monday and no problems through last week and the weekend. But today it's coming apart again. It made a loud intermittent clicking noise on startup. That noise went away after a minute or two but then came back and I could see thin strands of the belt coming apart and flopping around so I immediately shut off the engine. Anyone else having this issue? Since it's happened twice in just a little over a week, I'm thinking there must some other problem causing it but I haven't been able to find anything searching online. It'll be going back to the shop, but just wanted to see if there were some underlying issues causing belts to fail on this engine. Thanks in advance.

 

Hi jmck1982,
I haven't heard of this concern before. Did you have the initial replacement done at a Chrysler dealership? The new belt should have a part warranty, but it sounds like the belt probably isn't the cause of the failure.

 

Any of the pulleys the belt rides on is suspect, particularly the tensioner and more particularly if that tensioner is not walled. Whoever did previously should re-check alignment and bearings function.