123 Ch. A/C Belt Stretch
 

Has anyone experienced unusual amount of stretch on their a/c accessory belt? I installed a new belt and have had to adjust it 3x's in the last 2 days.
BTW, according to NAPA it is the correct belt. I am currently at the limit of it's adjustment........BTW, Striped bass fishing is great on Cape Cod. Thanks for your input.

belt buster
 

i have had some belts that stretch too much. poor brands apparently. cant tell you what to avoid ...cant remember. i started buying them from my mb parts place... seem better.

Get the Continental belt from the dealer. The NAPA belt is crap because it stretches too much. Been there done that.

i've found that is true too. cheap belts are cheap belts. they stretch and don't last as long.
on my Jetta where the alternator belt has to be very tight, i only use Dayco belts from Checker. they don't stretch much and last a long time. but they cost twice as much as the "others".

Pretty well agree with above comments. Unless pulleys have rust on them from not having belt on for a long time or new belt is riding on a rusty part of pulleys old belt did not contact. Serious misalignment problems with pulleys involved a possibility. Again though if old belt was ok for a long time just poor quality belt is the most likely cause. :)

Same experience as Pequod
 

I had the same trouble last summer; I don't blame cheap belts as much as the #$%@ rebuilt R4 compressor on my 84 300d that got worse and worse as I believe it slowly choked on lubrication-starved r134a. Remember, this system was designed for R12 which carries mineral oil very nicely - something this compressor needs because there is no oil sump. Finally, the best belt I found (a Goodyear Gatorback -hands down the strongest) couldn't turn the compressor one day and burned off. My dad's '81 240d had the original compressor for 10 years without so much as a recharge of R12 and it still blew cold and did so quietly. I'm thinking of converting back.....

r12
 

if the economics of it work i would always stay with the r12 for systems built for it if possible. so many of the conversions just dont work out well in the long run.