Tony's Truck and Car Part Blog

3 Consequences of Ignoring Your Car's Engine Drive Belt

30 July 2017 by Bryan Collins

The drive belt of an engine plays a critical role in ensuring that various systems of your vehicle function at an optimum level. Several problems can result if you take long without replacing this drive belt when it has become damaged or worn out. This article discusses some of the adverse consequences of a defective diesel engine drive belt:

Difficulty Starting the Vehicle

The drive belt helps to operate the alternator of your vehicle. A badly damaged or cut drive belt will lose its ability to keep the alternator working. Consequently, the battery of your vehicle will lose all the power that was stored on it as you use the different electrical systems in your vehicle, such as the music system. Starting the vehicle will become hard after that because there will be no power stored in the batteries. You may be compelled to call for roadside assistance or find someone to use jumper cables to start your vehicle.

Hard Steering Operation

The integrity of the drive belt of your engine also has an effect on how easily you can operate the steering wheel of the vehicle. This is because the power steering belt may not work well in case the drive belt of the engine is defective. You may, therefore, end up having to use a lot of effort in order to get the vehicle to negotiate corners or keep moving straight on the highway. This added work will increase the extent to which you feel tired each time you drive your vehicle.

Defective Air Conditioning

The impact of a damaged or cut drive belt goes beyond what you may think as a layperson. For instance, did you know that your defective air conditioning system may be due to drive belt issues? The drive belt (plus the radiator fan) helps to take heated air away from the engine. That heated air is used by the air conditioning system to warm the interior of the vehicle. It, therefore, follows that a defective drive belt will have an adverse effect on the AC system of that vehicle. At the very least, the AC will work harder to maintain the conditions that you desire in the cabin of your vehicle.

Different types of engines operate differently. For instance, diesel engines rely on compression to ignite the air/fuel mixture in the combustion chamber while petrol engines use spark plugs. It is, therefore, advisable to take your diesel engine to service technicians who specialise in those engines so that your vehicle will have all its components, such as the drive belt, checked and serviced appropriately.

Contact a local diesel engine service for more information and assistance. 

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