2000 Chrysler Voyager review from North America

During dry conditions the serpentine belt shredded twice, once at 50,000 miles and again this past week at 59,000. But I don't know at what point the shredding started and have no way of knowing if water was a contributing factor.

Anyhow, this is a major safety issue because power steering is lost. Most men could probably muscle it when this happens, but who wants their wife with the kids to face this while driving on the freeway in the passing lane?

I have reviewed three other forums along with this one and am convinced that the true fix is proper drive, driven, idler, and tensioner pulley alignment. But, who can truly verify these with the engine in the vehicle.

So, the next best thing is to go with one of the two kits mentioned by an earlier writer and made by either Goodyear or Gates. I have just ordered the Gates kit via Shop. com which is just a link to Murphy Auto Supply in Dallas, Texas, but feel that the Goodyear product is probably a good choice too.

The logic for choosing one of these kits, as mentioned by one of the earlier writers, is the grooves on the back of the new belt and on the new idler and new tensioner pulleys. The original belt back was smooth and ran on the smooth side of the original pulleys. With the drive and driven pulleys already being grooved the system now has lock in on both sides and shouldn't slip to either side of the new idler or tensioner pulleys because they are grooved unless there is gross misalignment of pulleys as mentioned by an earlier writer.

As stated earlier, perfect alignment is the perfect answer, but that is impractical for us home mechanics and probably can't be easily corrected by a shop mechanic without a lot of struggle with the engine in the vehicle.

So, the Gates system is due here on December 5 and we will proceed to get our finger cruddy. And, if this works okay then we that have chosen it need to remember 70,000 miles down the road that we no longer have the factory set up and will need to replace the new belt with a like one.

Just a note about two Chrysler T&Cs also owned. We have never had a problem on their 3.8L engines and we live on the coast in Washington State and experience lots of water. One had 120,000 miles and the other has 70,000 miles.

All of you earlier writers on this forum and the others that I researched are appreciated.