First, thanks for having this forum. I'm a member at a few others and the fact that y'all are willing to help each other as a community is great!

My daughter's 2010 Cube, has about 100k miles, is beginning to make an odd noise at or near the belt tensioner. It almost sounds like a gurgling, watery sound, but still with a "mechanical" undertone. I've only looked at it (listened to it) in the dark (yes I had a flashlight) and I'm not sure what the tensioner indicator "should do" as far as it bouncing while the engine is running. The sound begins almost immediately upon starting the car.

Thoughts? Exeriences? I'm of course hoping for "Oh yeah, they all do that and you need to replace the _______, and here's how you do it".

Thanks all!

The person who says 'it's this exact part' usually learns to shut up pretty quick.............

Yank the serp belt and spin all the pulleys looking for one that does not spin right. Also work the tensioner arm through it's range of swing and see if it sticks or drags anywhere in there , bad tensioner if it does. At 100K you should be having trouble with something in the serp belt there, they often begin to shed parts before that.

CubeyLou wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 16, 2018 8:00 am

beginning to make an odd noise at or near the belt tensioner. It almost sounds like a gurgling, watery sound, but still with a "mechanical" undertone.

well to me it sounds like it could be the water pump starting to fail and it is located right next to the tensioner so that could possibly be the issue

Spin that pulley like I said and you will know soon enough.

Thanks y'all I appreciate the advice. And you're right amc49, never, never, never use absolutes!

The problem is, they want you to, all the people want to know the exact one part that cures the problem and thus revealing that they don't know spit about cars. When they find out it is not exact science then they flip out.

I saw it time and time again when I was in parts, they will go so far as to accuse you of selling them the wrong part on purpose to get more money out of them (it DOES occur and a really big problem based on incentives offered for selling more parts whether the customer needs them or not). I could top that sales list any time I wanted but I don't work that way and even got in a lot of trouble by not following company quotas for parts sales. I prefer to sell one or two parts to let the customer know I care about them and then they become lifers as far as coming back into your store. The district managers though did not feel that way at all, they would rather you sell until you choke the customer as they didn't really believe in customer loyalty enough to try to cultivate it.That theory resulted in so many returns you couldn't believe it, the returns after a weekend often broke the store bank on Monday or Tuesday when they got high enough to actually sack the store of operating funds to barely be able to operate. Then all sales had to post to only one person so he could accumulate enough cash to do refunds past store bankrupt and it warped him instantly into being the monthly top seller due to that. That recalculation was such a pain in the -ss and a whopping waste of company money trying to keep up with it.

That among other overly stupid things the modern chains do now results in roughly one half of all worker input going straight into the trash can with no effect on the bottom line at all other than pure waste.

Try working for one, you won't believe how much time and cash they waste if you know anything about business.

I hear you amc49. I put in 20+ years in aftermarket automotive retail and know 100% what you're saying is true.

That said, I finally went to work on the Cube, removed the inner fender, and to be sure the tensioner was the issue I fired her up to "hear the noise" and be able to see it at the same time. The issue turns out to be that two of the three rubber isolator "buttons" on the AC clutch are gone and when it cycles on/off it chatters/rattles making that metallic clickety-click sound.

Live and learn, but maybe this will help another owner. Thanks all for your help.

FMI, is there a way to upload an image without it being "in the cloud" first? Thanks again.

Yep, typical to make noise if you lose the shock absorbers in the a/c clutch plate. Why it's faster to yank belt and check every single part that spins there, the fault can be in any one of them.

Thanks y'all!