[DJVAN]

Well I am back from the Honda Dealer with the ODY. They agreed that the idler pulley was going out and that they would replace the pulley and the serpentine belt, but they had neither in stock but it would come in on Thursday afternoon. The appointment would be on Friday at 8:30 AM. They was not going to give me a loaner due to the bearing not locked up but rather having just lateral movement. I told them I wanted some paper trail to say if belt broke or caught fire and engine compartment fire that they was notified of this being a possibility, they agreed and put it on the appointment time sheet saying this. So I guess that I will continue to drive ODY until Friday. Sorry, the pictures I took with cell phone (to early in the morning and dark still here) did not turn out good enough to post but will take my camera outside and take picture and video of it.

 

[DJVAN]

I would agree if the belt would break it would not stop me going home or to Honda Dealer. But if the belt burns and catches fire, let's say I would have a lawyer and paperwork that Honda Dealer Service Technician gave me lined-up and say I want a new ODY Elite. I do not think they would argue with anything. So far no smoke smell. bandit400 did you get a look of the surface of the idler pulley to see the wear it have? I see they removed the wate pump from the serpentine belt duty and it is in with the cam belt, probably a great choice.

 

[DJVAN]

I question how far you could drive with a broken belt because the alternator is no longer charging vital electrical systems - including the power steering unit. My pulley and belt were replaced by my dealer at about the second month of ownership (very low km). The service tech said the idler looked as though it had 100,000 km on it!

Hodna, the power steering is electric not hydraulic. The alternator not charging if belt broke would be a guess of time as to when it would not have battery voltage to operate the electronics for engine operation, such as radiator fan, electronic ignition etc... I have run almost 250 miles on a car back in the mid 70's from the positive connector breaking off the alternator. I realize that car did not have the draw of current for keeping the engine running as I was able to shut-off all non-essentials except the turn signal, brake lights and engine ignition system. Yes the new cars call for more current being direct from the alternator than in the past years. I call it Honda cheapness to put in such small battery only for starting the engine than they count on the alternator to take over after that plus the charge to the battery. I would rather have a larger battery plus the same current alternator Honda has now. It gives a true redundancy to battery reserve power if the alternator fails.

Thanks for letting me know your idler pulley also went out, might be showing some statistics of a manufacturer failure in this area.

 

[DJVAN]

bandit400, I have seen 2 vehicles of different owners, one on a Toyota Camry where I rebuilt the engine (bearing, rings head job), water pump replaced and all gaskets included. 1 week after rebuilding it their son drove the car and the alternator bearing seized up caught fire and completely burnt the engine compartment. I arrived when the city fire department had put out the fire. Their son said he heard a squealing sound and didn't know what it was so kept on driving. 2 blocks from their home. Needless to say they did not keep the car after that happened. The other person is a friend of mine and he had his idler pulley bearing seized, did not hear anything but saw smoke pouring out from under the hood of his Toyota Tundra, he got out of his truck and went to open his hood, but saw flames at that point, and called 911 for the fire department to come and put out his fire.

So I know a serpentine belt can cause a fire or just break. Friday is the appointment to take it in and I only drove it one time since coming home from the Honda dealer.

My pulley has paint missing to bare metal on some thin line portions of the pulley and other areas have rubber from the serpentine belt on the pulley, plus I cannot see anywhere the part number or logo on the serpentine belt.

 

[DJVAN]

Finally today I got my ODY in for replacing the idler/tensioner pulley. They gave us a 2018 Pilot as a loaner until the ODY was done. They indeed replaced both serpentine belt and tensioner pulley. The pulley not only had burnt rubber from the serpentine but the pulley has several grooves of roughly 3/32 inch and had lateral play in it. The mechanic said thanks for spotting the problem before it become a catastrophe.

Now 1st time driving a Pilot. It was fairly noisy (don't know what version but it was a basic vehicle). The braking was touchy, I was not impressed with this as a safety issue. But the window arrangement gave you excellent viewing all around the vehicle. It came with right back camera view with right turn signal on. My wife said she liked this rather than having an idiot light flashing on interior by right mirror. I liked the idiot light and audible warning with steering wheel shutter better as a feedback and center display flashing your an idiot back off lane changing and look! Well maybe not the exact meaning but you catch my drift on this. We drove today about 137 miles, from store to store to interstate and eating. Long day. The mileage it get appears to be about 15% better than ODY. Sorry Hodna, it had letters for the compass display on the center console adjacent to the time. I liked the center display background in blue, better than the ODY. And the last problem I had was under My Honda music, had a duplicate copy of songs repeated through around 120 of 150 songs. I could get it to come up on the screen and would have a delete soft button to remove all music but it was greyed out. I could not delete the music no matter what I tried. After getting ready to leave the Honda dealer the Service wanted to see how I was deleting the songs, he said I was going the right way of doing it, lo and behold it came up with delete all music or delete folders highlighted I was able to delete the music finally. I said what did you do, he said it WiFi a revision for it, didn't hear or see of the revision. But it works! And I'm happy again, unless I get someone knocking at our door for this time of year. And I am not saying Halloween either!