my g/f's 98 corolla ran into some trouble yesterday. The motor started to make some huge rattling noise, so she took it to the dealer (i personally think dealers are evil and out to get you when your car brakes down :o ) and they charged her 75 bucks just to inspect it. And they told her that they needed to change her belt, and the tensioner for 300+ dollars.
So she calls me, and i'm like, get the car out of the dealer, and let me take a look at it. It was at night when i took a look, but the tensioner seems to be loose. How can i fix it? I'll get a better look at it this afternoon when i get off school. It's a 1.8L motor, i'm not yet too familiar w/ toyotas, anyone have a clue?
That's not un-heard of. If it has around 100,000 on it the belt could easily need to be replaced. Did you inspect the belt? If there are any cracks at all it should be replaced. As for the tensioner if it's loose and tightening it doesn't help then yes it needs to be fixed. The dealer price is so much because of the labour. If you want to save her some money then buy the parts and a manual and do the labor yourself.
Is the tensioner a pain to replace? the car has 80 something miles on it. If you can give me a few heads up on it, it'll be sweet, 'cause i don't exactly feel like spending money for a manual on a reliable car
Sorry I have never replaced something like that before, that's why I suggested the manual.
Let me take a quick look at my manual which covers the 98 as well...
OK it doesn't sound to hard. Rotate the belt tensioner clockwise to release the tension using a long wrench or socket on the hex-shaped boss. Slip the belt off the pulleys.
Unscrew the mounting bolt and nut. There you go. Make sure the new belt is routed exactly the same as the old.
For an alternative you could probably save 50 bux or so by going to an independant shop.
Shit an S13?? I'd tried to be all cool with the chassis code and fucked it up
As for the vvt-i, I don't believe they had vvt-i untill the 2000 model. The ones that have it say VVT-i right on the plastic engine cover, and the other ones don't even have the cover as far as I remember.
you sure its a zze110? because 1ZZFE use a timing chain
your GF probably has a 7AFE, its still 1.8L, but no VVT on that
if its a 7AFE, the belt tensioner is a small pulley, you can push it left and right when the bolt is loosened, you rarely have to take the pulley off. It would suck to pay 300 bucks when all you needed was to push the pulley farther to the right and tightening it
the procedure Chris mentioned is for the 1ZZFE, that tensioner is a completely different mechanism
Yes the 1zz-fe uses a timing chain...
..
But it also has an accesory drive belt going around the crank, all the accesories, and the mentioned tensioner pulley.
The tensioner on the 7a-fe with the slide-adjust mechanism was abandoned in favor of one that self-adjusts using a spring mechanism.
240meowth, maybe the spring can be replaced, i don't know if you can get that separatly. What is more likely if it moves around is that the bearings or other part of the rotating assembly is gone. hence, it needs to be replaced as the dealer said.
ZZE-110 is 1998-2002. All ZZE-110s had the 1zz-fe. The 98-99 models (thin front grill opening) had no vvt-i and 120HP, the 2000-2002 models (bigger grill opening w/ chrome strip) have vvt-i and 125 HP.
Originally posted by project trueno btw 240meowth thats a nice 240 , front end compliments the coupe rear end nicely
thanks
well so i finally took a look at it during the day, on my way back from school i went to buy the belt from pep boys, they didn't have it in stock, it was like 29 bucks or something. So i'm like, alirght let's go home and see what's going on. So i pop the hood open and noticed indeed the belt needs change, it's got minor cracks all over the place. Than i saw the tensioner, or at lease what i think is the tensioner, it's a 8mm hex. I was bummed out, i mean it would of been sweet for it to be a bolt w/ a hex inside, 'cause i can just chuck a breaker bar down there, and use the breaker bar to do the work, but instead i have this tiny little 8mm thing trying to turn it but it wouldn't turn... so i decided, let's start the engine and maybe i can isolate the problem. So i turned on the engine, and looked in there, man it sounded bad, it sounded like it was coming from eveywhere. THAN IT CAUGHT MY EYE, the ac compressor pully had a shiny trim around it, I looked closer, and saw some sort of AC canister (it was connected to the ac lines) was stuck down there at the corner had it's living hell grind out of by the AC compressor. Supposly this canster was just behind and just under the passanger side headlight but the ac pipe snapped and it fell down there. So i got my g/f and told her to turn on the car and i was like "what noise were you talking 'bout?" she had the most whaco look and said "I COULD OF SWORN IT WAS MAKING NOISES"
but back to the dealership... why the hell did they not see this?
btw chris corolla S, you've been a great help, but can you confirm me that the 8mm hex was the tensioner for the belt? because i'll have to replace it sooner or later.
Lots of times the bearing in the tensioner pulley can be replaced far cheaper than the whole tensioner. Carry the pulley to a local alternator shop and ask if they can press in a new bearing. I do them quite often, and it uses the same bearing as the front of many alternators.
haha dude that's fucked up, those lazy dealer assholes didn't see that shit?? they suck
it sounds like you have the right bolt. From the picture it should be on the left(passanger) side of the engine (duh it's not going to be on the tranny side) just under the edge of the valve cover. It is a hex that you put a socket over or a wrench on so that 8mm must be it.
Remember you don't have to remove the tensioner, so don't touch the uper mounting nut or the lower mounting bolt, you want the bolt-thing just above the lower one it doesn't stick out as far.
To remove the whole tensioner for replacement later if needed just remove the mounting nut and bolt.
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, front end compliments the coupe rear end nicely
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