I agree with Supradupe. I had a balancer fail and the damage was many THOUSANDS of $$....closer to $4,000 than $2,000. After a fight, we worked it out and after the recall, I eventually recovered ALL my expense.

The tensioner operates somewhat independently of the balancer. If the tensioner fails (not an uncommon event), there's no tension on the belt, regardless of the balancer condition.

For my experience, once the balancer failed, it tore into the timing cover. It never leaked because I shut engine down as soon as it failed. But the cover was severly scored and I suspect would have leaked in a matter of minutes. In my opinion, I don't think a balancer failure will be the cause of a tensioner failure.

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Jim