Quote:
Originally Posted by dradernh
I'll report here what I discover.
Your statement regarding degradation due to ozone exposure is what caught my attention. Do you have any knowledge or thoughts about how the different manufacturers' serpentine belts might be constructed in terms of their susceptibility to ozone?
FWIW, I live in a part of the country where ozone concentrations, while not as high as in some other places, is generally above the 50th percentile during the warmer months. This is what caused me to think that five years after the car's being built, it might be time to take the belt off and examine it. Since the dealer's going to be doing the work, I'm going to have him replace it with a fresh unit.
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Sounds good.
These days all manufacturers do a really good job protecting (probably in the way they formulate the material to make these belts) the belts against ozonlysis (caused by ozone and is what causes the belts to crack as this process destroys double bonds in rubber) so they don't crack as bad as they used to they used to (what I generally see is that the tracks or ribs is what gets most of the cracking these days). So these belts will tend to last longer than traditional belts but eventually they will degrade. Thus if you change them early enough then this isn't going to be an issue, generally from what I see if you drive your car alot then heat cycling (makes the belt hard) and mileage will be a bigger factor than cracking from ozone (which is a problem for cars that sit alot like summer cars).
But in response to your question I have no idea how each manufacture makes their belts in terms of their resilency to ozone, I do notice that belt technology have gotten really good as of late.