[ponchonutty]

So had to go down a snowy road to pick something up at a freinds home. Pull in and get message saying service charging system and I noticed I had no power steering. Before I could get to where I was going my engine temp pegged out. Got it in the garage and found nothing but snow and ice all around the belt area and the belt was still in there. Hope I didn't hurt anything. I shut it down as soon as I had it get hot. All the oil and coolent looks and smells normal. Just my luck!

 

[medicrxdoc]

There is a TSB to install some extra plastic cover to help prevent water from splashing up on to the serp belt. I don't know if this would have helped or not, but yes...it is annoying (have only had water splashing with a squeal and dimming of the lights)....and a poor design

 

[rbarrios]

belt froze or the pulleys were slipping big time?
or did it break and sit there on all the snow/ice.

 

[ponchonutty]

Sorry for the funky post. I was tired lastnight after fixing it. What must have happened that a piece of ice or snow got inside and popped the belt off. None of the pulleys were frozen or anything like that. Inspected everything and didn't find anything abnormal other than a lot of snow in and around the area. I cleaned everything off and popped the belt back on. Drove about 100 miles today and it ran like normal. Piss poor engineering to have the belts open to the road slop from the front tires!!!!

 

[rbarrios]

arent all transverse engines like this?
Or is there not enough shielding to keep stuff out of that area?

 

[ponchonutty]

Yes obviously most FWD vehicles suffer with a simular issue. I know the Caravan has had a lot of issues in the past for a very simular problem. You'd think this day and age designers would figure out how to learn from the past.

 

[jsimms]

This seems like an isolated issue; although a PITA to deal with :-\

 

[ponchonutty]

I certainly hope so. I have noticed before if driving in a lot of snowy, slushy roads you can hear the belt making odd noises becuase of all the crap around it. I noticed this the first time we had a decent snow. I had stopped in at my inlaws and kept the car running. When I got out I could hear a whining noise coming from the front passenger side. At the time I wasn't sure exactly what it was but now looking back I am pretty sure it was snow and ice in there. I can't believe no one else has had this same issue????

 

[ponchonutty]

Apparantly this is another common problem with our vehicles. Although few, there have been some accidents due to loss of power steering.

This was over at the Acadia forum.

http://www.acadiaforum.net/forum/index.php?topic=2930.0