My daughter's 1999 Protégé keeps throwing the alternator belt. after the second one I changed the alternator itself ( thinking the bearings were seizing) but this morning after two days it did it again. the A/C power steering belt is fine and i couldnt find any problems with the idler pulley and it all looks to be aligned. Any Ideas?

 

the belt might be to big, and the one pully that you had to move forward in order to take the belt off make sure that one is tightened right back up again. it won't be a pully problem if it was it would be squeeling.

 

check the pulleys themselves for rubber or metal deposits. make sure all of the shafts are straight by giving them a spin and making sure that they don't wobble.

 

yeah i agree with the wobbling.

 

Yeah I checked the pulleys for rough spots and wobbling, I also checked their alignment with a laser bore-sight tool and everything checks out. I just got told that the heat stops working in the cabin then the belt starts screaming and shortly after the battery light comes on..... wish i would have know that yesterday. So knowing that it pretty much means it's the water pump seizing. I checked underneath the engine and found anti-freeze but couldn't locate the source. This thing has had 3 water pumps and this will make 4. Is that normal for these cars (200k)? This last one has less than 5k miles on it?

 

no thats definitally not normal i just changed the water pump on my focus and it lasted 110,000 km, the water pumps you put in are brand new right? there not rebuilt or anything?

 

I didn't do the water pumps, the previous owners had it done. So who knows if they were new or rebuilt or how good the mechanic was that did it. we're trying to find out if the last one is under warranty. I just wondered if anyone knew if this was a reoccurring problem with this model car, that might point to a design flaw of something.