Belt Noise from cold start.

Folks,

My 02 E39 525i makes a bad niose when starting from cold. Its done it from day 1 of my ownership. I had it back under warranty (main Dealer) and they "oiled" the belts. 2 days later he noise returned. I took it back and they replaced the belts and tensioner. A month after that it returned again. Im sure its not causing any problem but I would like to get rid of it. The noise goes after 2 mins driving.

As a trouble shooting task i started the car cold yesterday and poured a small amount of water on the belts and instantly the noise was gone.

Any ideas or should I just put up with it.

Is there any "oil" for belts?

Thanks as always

Mick

Edited by Mick525i

There are two tensioners on your engine, you imply in your first post that they just changed one.  Could be that the other one has now failed.

Never heard of oil for belts.  Oil is a lubricant.  Belts work by friction so by reducing the friction by oiling the belt would be detrimental to how the belt works. 

Belts that squeal, like fan belts on old cars when driving with the rear heated screen on, are caused by the belt being too loose and slipping (when the load on the alternator increases) on the pulleys and making it squeal.  These old cars don't have belt tensioners like the E39 has.

Did the main $tealer replace the complete tensioner assembly, like could they have put back the old pulley with old knackered bearings that make a noise on a new spring arm?

It could be one of the belt driven ancillaries that has a fault.  Could be rust on the water pump shaft that gets worn off after a few minutes driving or bearings on the power steering pump etc.

HTH

Andrew

I don't want to worry you, but this sounds like the same problem that I had a couple of years back.

Had my E39 523iSE in the dealers to check out a slight squeal when cold noise.  They even had it overnight to check it in the morning. No joy.

A week later, at 70mph, in the fast lane of the M25, the waterpump destroyed itself. Dumped all the water and every warning light came on.

Luckily I switched the engine off before there was any more damage done.

I would seriously consider changing the pump as a matter of course.

 

Good luck.

I spoke to the Dealer and they said that the tensioners x2 were done along with all aux belts. They said its probelry not the pump but I could drop it in for diagnosis.

 IT would need to be on fire for them to diagnose a heat issue

Any way is there any adjusting on the tensoniers and if so is it difficult?

Thanks,

Mick

I think the tensionerson the e39s are auto tensioners, you may find that the pulleys have become 'polished' allowing the belts to slip from cold, a company called wurth do a v-belt lubricant iirc you can buy it from halfrauds its not oil based,some sort of silca spray,it also works on poly v-belts on the e39s hth 

Good info there Dutch but if Micks car has only done 28,000 miles the pulleys shouldn't be that highly polished.

I replaced my water pump at 63,000 miles as I had heard of horror stories of these things failing as Virgin says at speed on a motorway!

I only did the waterpump as I discovered that when I had removed the viscous fan it would be really straight forward to remove it.  Once the fan and shroud are out the way, all you need is a 16mm spanner to move the tensioners out of the way to slip the belt off the pulleys.

£37 ish from ECP for an OEM water pump.  £75 from a main $tealer.  No prizes for guessing where I bought mine from.

Andrew

Andrew Rolland wrote:   How exactly would a dealer diagnose a faulty waterpump without stripping it out?  It isn't like you can listen to the bearings thru a screwdriver as the bearings are covered by the pulley which is near some revolving fan blades! Andrew

 

Andrew is right.

Do yourself a favour and learn from my misfortune.

Change that pump!

Andrew Rolland wrote: Meant to add, yes the belt tensioners are auto tensioners. How exactly would a dealer diagnose a faulty waterpump without stripping it out?  It isn't like you can listen to the bearings thru a screwdriver as the bearings are covered by the pulley which is near some revolving fan blades! Andrew

LOL I would love to see them try.

I will try the belt "oil" if it still makes noise then ill do the pump.

Getting lazy

Rear pads need doing too

Thanks gents

Mick

Not necessarily.

The bearings in my distributor in my 3.0i 24V Senator used to squeal only when cold then it would stop once the car warmed up. 

There is no way you could oil them or access them and they weren't fed from the engine oil sump.

A while later, when doing 80mph in the middle lane on the M1 the bearings on the dizzy shaft decided to fail and sent the rotor arm into the side of the dizzy cap and blew the thing into a million pieces.  I thought my timing chains had snapped and left the timing casing and were dragging on the black stuff from the noise the car was making.  Fairly scary stuff!

Andrew

Mick525i wrote: Folks, My 02 E39 525i makes a bad niose when starting from cold. Its done it from day 1 of my ownership. I had it back under warranty (main Dealer) and they "oiled" the belts. 2 days later he noise returned. I took it back and they replaced the belts and tensioner. A month after that it returned again. Im sure its not causing any problem but I would like to get rid of it. The noise goes after 2 mins driving. As a trouble shooting task i started the car cold yesterday and poured a small amount of water on the belts and instantly the noise was gone. Any ideas or should I just put up with it. Is there any "oil" for belts? Thanks as always Mick

Not oil as such Mick but silicone spray is quite effective. It drives out the moisture and helps 'feed' (for want of a better phrase?) the rubber on the belt. Don't forget, dry rubber loses it's grip and goes brittle. Silicone nourishes the rubber and helps it grip.

HTH

Mike