I was driving along in Mesa Arizona, lovely day, when a sudden snap-bang sound came from the engine compartment of my '95 E320 wagon.

Alternator light came on in "red"...ABS amber light and a loss of power steering with a rapid temperature rise forced me to pull over. I went out of the next exit and of course it was the one with absolutely no service stations in sight. When I finally pulled into a Shell station an opened the hood I saw a bell shaped object sticking out about an inch from where my belt tensioner should be and the serpentine belt completely off from where it was supposed to be.

I am home recuperating from this ordeal...had the car picked up and delivered to my friends (where we were going to dinner) and have ordered the appropiate parts from PeachParts...

My question...and I knew you knew I had a question...do tensioners just blow up and disintegrate???

I will be removing and replacing parts tomorrow and would like to hear from anyone out there who has had a similar experience.

Thanks in advance...also if there is any advice...I'd appeciate that too.

I plan on driving this car for ever.

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I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)