Sometimes the mechanic can cause this noise by slopping grease/oil onto the belt during installation. It will make noise until it burns/wears it off.

 

I highly recommend renting a serpentine tensor tool from Autozone. I was unable to get my breaker bar or 12” ratchet into the engine bay compartment. My fan barely had any flex to it, so I wasn’t comfortable using a pry tool. It’s a free rental and was the only way I could access the tensor 1/2inch location. I also was able to get the belt on by accessing it from under the car, and above the car (So I’d suggest jacking it up if you can’t get it on the right way in the first 10 minutes).

I have a 2008 G35x Sedan.

Also, I noticed my coolant reserve tank was leaking. Thats a bummer, but glad I caught it during this job.

 

If you empty the tank below the crack you could probably epoxy or jb-weld it instead of buying a new overflow tank. I'd imagine they're not cheap.

 

Appreciate the suggestion. I think it was a combination of a couple things. First, I just recently changed my coolant, and I think the system was pulling from the reserve a little as I ran the car the following couple days. In addition, I took the tank out, and cleaned everything and re-attached all the rubber tubes (Which had coolant on them, that looked like a leak). The combination of the 2, seems to have fixed the problem. So I got lucky! Just dirty and the tubes needed to be cleaned and 're-set'.

 

Just replaced my belt again yesterday because the car failed inspection. One whole rib was basically missing all the way around the belt. I have to agree that when the engine is hot and you don't want to burn yourself it's much much easier to get underneath the car to position the belt on some of the pulleys. All in all it took me about 20 minutes but I also saw that my overflow tank is cracked. This surprises me since it basically just sits there but to be fair I did hit a deer last year and get backed into this year so maybe it was one of those occasions that did it.

 

If my experience is any indication, I think you're right about the pro-active nature of the belt replacement. I'm coming up on 8 years and 85K miles and I'm still on my original belt. I keep checking it periodically to see if it needs changing, but it continues to look great; all ribs intact, no micro cracking, no slipping.

 

Great write-up. Unfortunately I don't have driveway or tools right now so had the mechanic do it. It has been horribly cold this winter in MD. I had the belt changed 3 weeks ago and put about 800 miles on it. I have noticed that in the morning it will make a clicking noise and a whining noise at first start up but it goes away after a while. It did not do this on the old belt. Is that the sign the tension is high?

 

This is fairly normal in the cold. It's possible that a genuine nissan belt may not cause the cold weather squeals but it's definitely not abnormal for sub-zero temperatures like we get up here. I changed my belt in early January for the same reason and it's been fine until mid february when it got too cold. There is a tension meter to view in the engine by but I don't have a photo of it to post right now. But yes, typically in this weather you'll get that noise but after March when it warms up if you don't hear it go away entirely then it might be worth a second look.

 

Just did this today. Went and bought the Autozone tool; I wasn't going to try and jam a socket wrench in that space. 6mm hex wrench on the tensioner. I used a Goodyear Gatorback belt (#4070810) as it looks like it is designed to flex better (less wear and tear on the belt) than a continuous ribbed belt. Took about an hour; worst part was getting old belt out from and new belt around the tensioner. I went in from the top. In 30K miles or so I'll try it from the bottom.
That may be awhile as I only drive approx. 6K miles a year.

 

And you saved some $$$!

 

Awesome job man, I have really appreciated it what you posted and I changed a serpentine belt on my 2008 Infiniti G35 Sedan Journey today for about 25 minutes using your post.I bought Gates Century Series Premium OE Micro-V Serpentine Belt - P/N K070810 very high-quality belt from Autoanything site and my old belt Gold NAPA micro survived 75000 miles and generally still in a good shape but I decided to replace it anyway.

 

This was super hard to replaced. I was struggling with reach down with my hands. There's no space to work with. But it's done.

 

You need to remove the coolant reservoir and to properly lay down the new belt you MUST jack the front of your car and that makes work lot easier.Glad you able to finish anyway!

 

It's not bad if you take out the cooling fans but it's really easy to just jack up the vehicle, remove the splash protector and do it from below since the tensioners are down there anyways.

 

Changed my old belt today with a Gates belt after 11 yrs 160,000 km. The old belt was squealing in the past three winters. I didn't remove the splash protector underneath cause the screws are all rusted and won't move. I removed the air filter box on both sides and coolant reservoir to make room. The hardest part is have the guts to push the fan forward enough to slip in a breaker bar into the tensioner hole. Make sure the new belt is aligned in all the pulleys grove properly. It should fit without any force. Took me sometime and I hope the new belt won't squeal comes winter.