Belt tension
 

I have never been overly confident in my ability to adjust fan belt tension by "feel," so I recently bought belt tension gauges for both serpentine and conventional fan belts. I must say that I was shocked at the degree of tightness required to meet the service manual specifications. My "by feel" tensions were off by nearly 50% on the low side.
As far as I know, there have been no negative consequences associated with the low tension. (I had thought that a pulley failure on a Jeep Cherokee was possibly due to excessive tension, but evidently not.) I was just wondering if anyone else has any insight on the subject.

My 617 alternator belt "felt" tight until we had some cold mornings and it started squeaking like crazy. They do need to be pretty tight to work. A doubt having them lose will cause any real damage.