First of all, it seems like people are confusing the V-Belt with the timing belt. OP is not talking about the timing belt, he’s talking about the V-Belt (AKA the accessories belt, or the serpentine belt). On the ’09 Forester the V-Belt runs the P/S unit and the alternator. There’s a second belt (a stretch-fit belt) that goes to the A/C unit).
OP, I just changed the V-Belt on my ’09 Forester over the weekend and I used Gates belts for both the V-Belt and the A/C belt. Mine wasn’t splitting, but I had purchased the belts almost a year ago and never installed them, then at the end of this winter my belts started making a very mild whine, so I figured I’d might as well replace them since I already have the belts. Granted it’s only been three days, but everything seems to be working fine, and I don’t think there was any reason to pay extra for the Racing Blue belts.
One quick tip which you’d probably immediately figure out yourself, but I might as well mention it. If you follow the shop manual, it says to remove the air intake, remove the belt guard, and loosen the tensioner locking bolt (it’s the one that’s facing you in the middle of the tensioner, as opposed to the one pointing up on top of the tensioner). What the shop manual didn’t state was that you also have to loosen the bolt on the right of the alternator, otherwise the alternator will stay in place and not relieve tension on the belt.
The bolt on the right of the alternator is facing you like the tensioner locking bolt. You just need to loosen it, don’t remove it. You’ll see that the bolt is holding a little bracket where the belt guard wedged into to be supported on the right side of the engine (side opposite the bolt on the belt guard). You’ll also notice that the bolt goes through the alternator, and then is holding a little bracket on the back of the alternator. That’s why you don’t want to overly loosen it, because I’ve heard stories of people who didn’t realize there was a rear bracket on there until they heard the sound of it falling into the engine compartment, then they had to waste time trying to find where it went. You just need to loosen the bolt enough so that the alternator can pivot downwards to reduce tension on the belt. Even though I loosened the bolt I mentioned, my alternator didn’t move much, but with mild pressure from one finger it would pivot down as it was supposed to.
Like I said, I’m sure you would’ve immediately figured this out on your own, but I wanted to include the info just in case you needed it, or someone in the future is doing a web search and comes across the information and finds it helpful.
