Hello All, I am new to the forum. I am planning on chaning my serp belt, tensioner pulley and the upper idler pulley. Is it best to use OEM parts? Will parts from Advance or another parts store suffice?

Thanks in advance, Jake

I did,belts are belts.As long as you get gates or better.

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1999 w140, quit voting to old, and to old to fight, a god damned veteran, deutschland deutschland uber alles uber alles in der welt

Thanks for the feedback... Do you think the pulleys need to be OEM?

yes.anything you don't failing soon you should by here.

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1999 w140, quit voting to old, and to old to fight, a god damned veteran, deutschland deutschland uber alles uber alles in der welt

Jake, why would you need to replace pulleys on a 2005 MB automobile? Pulleys aren't wear items, and they should last for decades and several hundred thousand miles ... the life of the automobile.

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Fred Hoelzle

Ferdman, I am getting some whining from my tensioner pulley and if I am replacing this I thought I may as well do the idler.

"May as well do it" is a scam more suited to 'merikun iron. Certainly not the way Mercedes are designed and most often maintained.

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Kent Christensen
Albuquerque
'07 GL320CDI, '10 CL550. '01 Porsche Boxster
Two BMW motorcycles

I'm like Ferdman. I would be surprised if the pulley bearings are worn. How many miles are on the car?

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Jim

Miles are around 110K, it is a 2005 4Matic Wagon...

I'd be surprised if the pulley brgs are shot. Try just replacing the belt and see if the noise is still there.

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Jim

engatwork, could the belt be causing the whining? I will try the belt replacement and see if that works first. Hopefully that is the case...

Thanks for the insight!

The belt could possibly be causing the noise. When you remove the belt spin the pulleys by hand and see if you can feel any "rough" spots. You can sometimes feel a rough spot in a bad bearing.

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Jim

I replaced the belt with an OEM... Still getting the whining noise. I checked the pulleys and they seemed fine. The upper idler squeeked a little. When I put the new belt on and fired it up the tensioner pulley seemed to moved a bit. Is that normal when the vehicle is running?

It will move around a bit.
Were you able to spin all the rotating elements without any "rough feeling"?
I have seen on a GM where, when the a/c compressor started going bad it made the belt/tensioner do some wierd stuff.

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Jim

I moved all the pulleys and they seemed fine, really no play or rough areas while moving. Any other suggestions? I may go and pick up an idler pulley and a tensioner to see if that makes a difference.