Are some OEM belts still made of Neoprene?

[The Critic]

This came off a 2008 Elantra with 87,000 miles. The neighbor said that Midas recommended new drive belts (duh), but she did not hear any abnormal noises.

It appears that Hyundai's belt supplier was Bando, as indicated by the printing on the belt. My suspicion is that this belt was made of a neoprene material and not EPDM, since EPDM belts rarely crack like this.

Earlier that morning, I had removed an OE belt from a Accord with 114k that only showed minor cracking and looked fairly new. That is a huge difference compared to the one shown in the picture.

So, can anyone comment on whether some OEMs are using neoprene material for their drive belts? Or was this simply an illustration of extreme service which caused the belt to wear out prematurely? It seems very unusual to me for belts to wear out 100k nowadays, unless they came out of a G35 or a Gen 2 Prius...and even then, they are nowhere near as bad as this.

Fwiw, I installed a new pair of Dayco W belts. The A/C belt had the additional groove on the belt to conform to misaligned pulleys, but the alternator one did not....not sure why. The Gates belts were too long, as usual, which is why I purchased Dayco - and will continue to in the future.

 

[01rangerxl]

That belt looks absolutely horrible for 87K miles.

I recently changed the Motorcraft belt on my truck with over 100K miles on it. The dealer replaced the OEM belt at around 20K when they replaced a faulty tensioner under warranty. When I changed the belt they put on with a Dayco W, there were NO cracks in the Motorcraft belt, certainly no sections missing. I still have it as a spare. I only replaced due to mileage.

I would guess it is the material and not severe service. My truck has been through much more mud and dirt than an Elantra typically ever sees. There was a lot of sand/dirt in the grooves of my old belt when I took it off.

 

[mechtech2]

The worst I have seen.
This may be a defective part, or excessive heat - something is wrong.

 

[bigjl]

The one on my old Mondeo diesel was better than that when the mate I sold it to traded it in.

The belt was the original from 2005 and had 250k+ miles on it.

If you pressed down on it you could hear it make a kind of dry squeaking noise?

Fastest belt disintegration, and this was a disnintegration was on a Mercedes Sprinter Ambulance with the 2.7 CDi engine, less than 30k and it had a leak from the fuel system somewhere which had soaked the belt.

It came apart one groove at a time, I then had to drive back to the fitters at 03:00hrs with no power steering which was fun, it didn't overheat so not sure if it had more than one belt or even if the belt layout was standard as the do a fair few modifications when the convert them.

I agree that the belt in the pictures looks pretty bad for the mileage and year, however Hyundais are cheaper than most cars of similar size so it is understandable that they may fit slightly cheaper consumables.

For example most new cars in the UK come with Michelin, Goodyear, Continental or say Pirelli tyres as OEM. But Hyundai and Kia tend to come with cheaper Hankooks.

87k isn't as bad as it could have been, and lets not forget that it could have lasted many thousands of miles more, it was past its best but still working.

 

[KrisZ]

Maybe some oil leaked or was spilled on it some time ago? Or some harsh engine cleaning chemicals were used, IDK? This definitely doesn't look like normal wear and tear.

 

[Bamaro]

Thats nasty looking. Maybe Hyundai got a 'good deal' on them.

 

[artificialist]

Did she drive where there is road salt? On the rare occasions where I find a car that has been exposed to road salt, the belts are questionable after 50,000 miles.

 

[stephen9666]

My Sonata had the factory belt on it until recently. I put on a Bando replacement that fit very well and has been working great. The Bando was made in Japan, BTW. The OE belt had around 80k miles on it.

My OE belt looked way better than the one posted by the OP. It actually didn't look too bad, but I was getting some belt slippage.

Side note - It seemed the belt was probably slipping due to a bunch of gunk built up in the pulleys. I don't know if it was oil from somewhere or material from the belt breaking down or what. I've never seen that on any other car I've owned. Cleaning the gunk out of the grooves of the pulleys and installing a new belt fixed the slipping problem.

 

[The_Eric]

Was this the A/C belt? I've seen several Hyundai's (mine included) do similar things to what you're showing on their A/C belts. Oddly enough, I don't think it's limited to the OE parts. I've seen Goodyear and Gates do that too.

Causes? Dunno. Too much tension or load for the belt size?

 

[The Critic]

Originally Posted By: The_Eric
Was this the A/C belt? I've seen several Hyundai's (mine included) do similar things to what you're showing on their A/C belts. Oddly enough, I don't think it's limited to the OE parts. I've seen Goodyear and Gates do that too.

Causes? Dunno. Too much tension or load for the belt size?


No, this was the alternator belt. The A/C belt had the same horrific cracks, but it was not missing any ribs.

 

[The Critic]

Originally Posted By: artificialist
Did she drive where there is road salt? On the rare occasions where I find a car that has been exposed to road salt, the belts are questionable after 50,000 miles.


No salt here, the car spent most of its life in the CA central valley.